I do not doubt that if Vera had not, in her wisdom, turned from him with disgust, but had feigned admiration for him, and even love, as some of the others did, she could have awakened in him a kind of mild love-ardour which would have been a nearer approach to a man’s passion for a woman than any that her sisters awakened in him; yet it is certain that he accepted Vera’s attitude towards him with resignation and turned from her to seek his bride elsewhere without any great show of indignation or of regret.
The morning after Olga’s quarrel with Praskovia Soltikof was practically the deciding hour in the matter of Ivan’s choice of a bride, and doubtless that quarrel had something to do with the result, though for my part I am persuaded that—Vera not being reckoned as available—he would in any case have chosen as he did.
There entered the terem that morning a little procession of three—the Regent, the Tsar Ivan, and Galitsin.
Maria Apraxin was passed without a glance by the Tsar and by Sophia, but Galitsin stopped and spoke with her. It was his duty to receive her report, and this day I doubt not she had an interesting one to give.
Meanwhile the Tsar was passing Olga Panief, but Sophia drew him back.
‘Glance at this one, Golúbchick,’ she said; ‘she is one you have never well examined, yet she is as beautiful as any, and has the very appearance of a Tsaritsa.’
Ivan glanced at her. ‘She frightens me,’ he said; ‘she has a cruel eye—I like her not. I would rather she were not here.’
‘Here is the minx, Vera Kurbatof,’ said the Regent, smiling nevertheless kindly upon Vera, and shaking her finger at her; ‘she who shrinks from us, Ivan. Dost know why she has done this? Because she knows that a bride is the more valued the more difficult has been her wooing and her winning. Doubt not she pines for thee, Golúbchick; she longs to be Tsaritsa and to sit beside thee in the highest seat.’
Vera said not a word, but stood with her eyes upon the floor at her feet.
‘Is it so, Vera?’ said the Tsar. ‘Speak truth and fear not. I would rather choose thee than all the rest, but to me it seems that thou art not willing, thou art afraid of me. When I touched thee thy head swam and thy knees failed; was it not so?’