“Then perhaps poor Sydney’s delinquencies have been forgotten,” she said. “In six months every thing is forgotten now. He has only been dead six months, you know. He died in Russia.”
All the while she was watching his face. She had moved in a circle where everything is known—where men have faces of iron and nerves of steel to conceal what they know. She could hardly believe that Paul Alexis knew so little as he pretended.
“So I heard a month ago,” he said.
In a flash of thought Etta remembered that it was only within the last four weeks that this admirer had betrayed his admiration. Could this be that phenomenon of the three-volume novel, an honorable man? She looked at him with curiosity—without, it is to be feared, much respect.
“And now,” she said cheerfully, “let us change the subject. I have inflicted enough of myself and my affairs upon you for one day. Tell me about yourself. Why were you in Russia last summer?”
“I am half a Russian,” he answered. “My mother was Russian, and I have estates there.”
Her surprise was a triumph of art.
“Oh! You are not Prince Pavlo Alexis?” she exclaimed.
“Yes, I am.”
She rose and swept him a deep courtesy, to the full advantage of her beautiful figure.