"I never knew that M. Demetrius had been to Siberia."
"He will go there yet--to his grave."
"What an odd choice of a cemetery!" said Leah, shrugging; "but I assure you, M. Aksakoff, that I take no interest in these funeral arrangements."
"No! Yet report says----"
He was about to blurt out something still more undiplomatic, but that Lady Jim's pity for his ineptitude made her intervene. "I know what it says, and of course I deeply sympathise with you."
"Madame!"
"Yes, yes; I comprehend your feelings. It is hard that your own daughter should defy you, especially as M. Demetrius is merely a doctor."
"He is a prince in our country," said Aksakoff, furious that she should take the lead, and at a loss how to regain it.
"A felon also, I understood you to say."
"Let him venture on French soil, and I shall certainly make him one," snarled Aksakoff, with unpleasantly glittering eyes. Lady Jim had scratched him rather dexterously, and the Tartar stood revealed.