All of a sudden—I couldn't help it—I put my head on her great, big bosom and burst out crying. "Oh, I'm so bad!" I said. "And you're so good!"
She patted me and kissed me on top of my head. "What pretty, soft hair you have, dear," she said, "and what a lot of it! My! My! I don't see how anybody that looks like you do could ever be unhappy a minute. You don't know what it means to be born homely and fat and to have to work hard just to make people not object to having you about." And she went on talking in that way until I was presently laughing, still against that great, big bosom with the great, big heart beating under it. When I felt that it would be a downright imposition to stay there any longer I straightened up. I felt quite cheerful.
"Was there something worrying you?" she asked.
I blushed and hung my head. "Yes, but I can't tell you," said I. And I couldn't—could I? Besides, there somehow doesn't seem to be much of anything in all my brooding. What a nasty beast that Mrs. Tevis is!
February 12. Mrs. Burke and I went to a reception at the Secretary of State's this afternoon. We saw Nadeshda's sister in the distance—that's where we've always seen her and the ambassador and the whole embassy staff ever since the "bust-up," except funny little De Pleyev. He, being of a mediatized family, does not need to disturb himself about ambassadorial frowns or smiles. It's curious what a strong resemblance there is between a foreigner of royal blood and a straightaway American gentleman. But, as I was about to write, this afternoon the distance between us and Madame l'Ambassadrice slowly lessened, and when she was quite close to us she gave us a dazzling smile apiece and said to Mrs. Burke: "My dear Madame Burke, you are looking most charming. You must come to us to tea. To-morrow? Do say yes—we've missed you so. My poor back—it almost shuts me out of the world." And she passed on—probably didn't wish to risk the chance that "ma's" puzzled look might give place to an expression of some kind of anger and that she might make one of those frank speeches she's famous for.
"Well, did you ever!" exclaimed "ma" when the Countess was out of earshot.
I said warningly: "Everybody's seen it and is watching you." And it was true. The whole crowd in those perfume-steeped rooms was gaping, and the news had spread so quickly that a throng was pushing in from the tea-room, some of them still chewing.
Afterward we discussed it, and could come to but one conclusion—that the Robert-Nadeshda crisis had passed. But—do the Daraganes think that Nadeshda is safe from Robert, or have they decided to take him in? Certainly, something decisive has happened. And if Robert had anything to do with it it must have been stirring enough to make the Daraganes use the cable—how else could Nadeshda's sister have got her cue so soon?
February 15. No news whatever of Robert and Nadeshda. Yesterday the ambassadress came here to tea and said to Mrs. Burke that she had had a letter from Nadeshda in which she sent us all her love—"especially your dear, splendid, big Monsieur Cyrus." Mr. and Mrs. Burke are to dine at the embassy five weeks from to-night—the ambassadress insisted on Mrs. Burke's giving her first free evening to her, and that was it.
"I reckon we'll have to go," said "ma" after her departure, and while the odor of her frightfully-powerful heliotrope scent was still heavy in the room, "though I doubt if I'll be alive by then. Sometimes it seems to me I've just got to knock off and take a clean week in bed. I thought I'd never think of drugs to keep me going, as so many women advise. But I see I'm getting round to it. And I'm getting that fat in the body and that lean in the face! Did you ever see the like? I must 'a' lost three pounds off my face. And the skin's hanging there waiting for it to come back, instead of shrinking. I'm glad my Tom never looks at me. I know to a certainty he ain't looked at me in twenty years. Husbands and wives don't waste much time looking at each other, and I guess it's a good, safe plan."