“I know your uncle was sent for; are you, too, under orders?” she asked lightly, with a smile.
“No.”
“Then, sir, I put you under orders. Come, talk to me.”
He fell in with her playful spirit, and bowed with an air that mocked the St. Petersburg courtiers. “Madame, I obey.”
“Come, then.”
She led the way back to a compartment in the rear of the car and they sat down facing each other. She was in a travelling gown of black velvet with long sweeping lines, and the black note was repeated with staccato effect by the studs of jet in her ears, and by her brilliant eyes; a darkly fascinating being whose gaze was open and direct, whose clear-skinned beauty was honest, owing not a tittle, as does most noble St. Petersburg beauty, to the false testimony of bleaching compounds and rouge-pots.
She leaned back with luxurious grace and smiled at him with frank good humour. “I know I’m very brazen to capture you in this manner, but that’s the privilege of an elderly widow.”
“Elderly?”
“Twenty-seven, sir!”
“Then that puts me, too, in the decrepit class.”