"Very well," said Marcelline; and she held her wrist towards the Prince as a tacit intimation that he was to button her dainty glove. "Then we shall not meet for some time, for I have not the most remote intention of going to St. Petersburg."
"What!" said the Prince, with an angry start; "you will not come? You are not serious, Marcelline?"
"I am perfectly serious, Prince Tchernigow. I have no intention whatever of going to St. Petersburg at present, and I beg I may hear no more on the subject. Have the goodness to ascertain if the Princess is ready!" She sat down and turned over the leaves of a book.
The Prince walked two or three times up and down the little apartment, and swore a Cossack oath or two under his breath. Then he stopped opposite to her and said:
"Where will you consent to go then, Marcelline?"
"H-m!" She paused, with an exasperating air of indecision. "I don't exactly know; I think I shouldn't mind the Mediterranean."
As she took her place beside the Princess, whose beauty was less brilliant than ever that evening, and whose depression her attendants had not failed to mark, she said, "Don't look so wretchedly subdued and terrified, Madame la Princesse; you are not going to behold your princely spouse in the cradle of his race and the midst of a grateful peasantry. You are going to the Mediterranean instead."
And then she said to herself, "Poor wretch! I am glad I saved her from that for the present. I really object to torturing her, when there's nothing to gain."
Another season, and another, and the Hôtel Tchernigow opened its hospitable doors, and maintained its reputation for splendour, profusion, and fashion. But the health of the Princess afforded more and more reason for solicitude to the hosts of friends who were desolated by the intelligence that she was indisposed; and the beauty of the Princess began to require that adornment from dress which it had hitherto bestowed upon the utmost resources of decoration. Ugly rumours regarding the princely ménage had begun to circulate; and a few, a very few, of those in high places had abated the alacrity with which they had been wont to welcome the appearance of the Muscovite magnate in their salons. French society does not tolerate overt brutality; and there had been a story about a fall, and a broken arm; and though no doubt both circumstances were purely accidental, and indeed the fullest particulars were given to the numerous callers who were so anxious to hear of the dear Princess's progress towards recovery, the matter left an unpleasant impression, which all the efforts made by the Princess to convince the world that she was not only the richest, but the happiest, woman in Paris did not succeed in removing.
What efforts they were! How she rouged, and dressed, and danced, and talked! How she drove out with the Prince, and talked to him, and smiled at him! How she playfully wore the injured arm in a very conspicuous sling, and lamented that she was obliged to let "Alexis" drive her darling ponies for her, until her tiresome arm should be quite well, and how he perfectly ruined them! How she talked about the polished parquets as being so charming, but then so dangerous,--"witness my poor arm, you know,"--and held the beautiful limb out for pity and admiration! How she complained that she could not ride any more that season, the injury having been inflicted on the "bridle-arm;" and exulted in the promise of "Alexis" that if she would only take good care of herself, and get quite well, she should hunt in Leicestershire next season!