‘Ah, you are enchanting!’ he cried, and the discreet groom led their horses away.
Sophia no longer doubted that she had found the companion of her life. The Prince had thundered up the hill of glass, and all the lore of fairy-tales made him hers. Personally she was attracted by him, by his slim, straight person, his dark, animated face, the languor of indolence and movement which cloaked his athleticism, his apt and ready conversation, and, above all—for she was something of an observer—by a certain indulgence of expression, habitual to him, which she did not wholly understand, but which suggested that the pursuits at which he so excelled were no more than toys to him. Moreover, it is charming to charm; the charmer usually feels kindly—out of her generosity—to the enslaved, and his involuntary cry, ‘Ah, you are enchanting!’ was delicious to her.
After dinner this pretty game of love-making had to yield place to the sterner and more serious duties of life, and the cards again occupied their undivided attention. Prince Petros acknowledged to an acquaintance with the rules of vingt-et-un, and all the varieties of that charming game, which he said he had sometimes played at home with his sisters. The betting was high, the guests of the evening were amusing, and disposed to be well amused; the Guards’ band in the gallery of the ballroom next door was playing delightfully, and Luck was in her most capricious mood. Later on the Prince gave a dance, and Sophia was only waiting for the announcement of the arrival of the first guests to leave the table and perform the much less congenial duty of receiving them.
Eleven struck, and a footman came to tell her that the first carriage was already coming up to the portico. Sophia was just at the end of her deal; the Prince was sitting on her right. He had lost once and gained once at rouge et noir. She held the pack ready to give him his third and last card.
‘For the last, Prince, and then I must go,’ she said. ‘No limit to the stake, if you wish.’
‘I stake all I possess and am on noir,’ said he gravely.
‘You have lost,’ said Sophia, laughing. ‘It is a heart.’
‘Then have I won?’ he said in a low voice, looking at her.
She stood still a moment (the others had heard his stake, though not his last reply), and a faint flush spread over her face.
‘I was but jesting, and I will not beggar you,’ she said. ‘Now, alas! I must go. Oh for half an hour more! But, Prince, I think there will be time for one short game at bezique when the ball is over.’