“I came for yours, countess. You are always amusing—as well as beautiful,” he added, with his mouth well controlled beneath the heavy mustache.
The countess shook her head playfully, which had the effect of tilting her cap to one side.
“I! Oh, I have nothing to tell you. I am a nun. What can one do—what can one hear in Petersburg? Now in Paris it is different. But Catrina is so firm. Have you ever noticed that, Steinmetz? Catrina’s firmness, I mean. She wills a thing, and her will is like a rock. The thing has to be done. It does itself. It comes to pass. Some people are so. Now I, my clear Steinmetz, only desire peace and quiet. So I give in. I gave in to poor Stipan. And now he is exiled. Perhaps if I had been firm—if I had forbidden all this nonsense about charity—it would have been different. And Stipan would have been quietly at home instead of in Tomsk, is it, or Tobolsk? I always forget which. Well, Catrina says we must live in Petersburg this winter, and—nous voil`!”
Steinmetz shrugged his shoulders with a commiserating smile. He took the countess’s troubles indifferently, as do the rest of us when our neighbor’s burden does not drag upon our own shoulders. It suited him that Catrina should be in Petersburg, and it is to be feared that the feelings of the Countess Lanovitch had no weight as against the convenience of Karl Steinmetz.
“Ah, well!” he said, “you must console yourself with the thought that Petersburg is the brighter for some of us. Who is this—another visitor?”
The door was thrown open, and Claude de Chauxville walked into the room with the easy grace which was his.
“Mme. la Comtesse,” he said, bowing over her hand.
Then he stood upright, and the two men smiled grimly at each other. Steinmetz had thought that De Chauxville was in London. The Frenchman counted on the other’s duties to retain him in Osterno.
“Pleasure!” said De Chauxville, shaking hands.
“It is mine,” answered Steinmetz.