“Yes, Highness,” he said in a humble voice. “Platon went with the message nigh three hours since.”
Laurence heaved such a sigh of relief that she actually tottered on her tired feet, and, greatly alarmed, Garrassime picked her up like a baby and, crossing the room in two strides, had laid her down on a lounge before she knew what was happening. Dazed still, but absolutely indignant, she tried to struggle up, but an enormous hand—light as a feather—held her tenderly back, while to her outraged feelings Garrassime’s deep voice, coaxing as if he were talking to little Piotr, uttered the following astounding and unpardonable words in impulsive Russian, “My daughter, my little dove, be quiet and let your old servant take care of you now, my pretty lamb!”
“That’s what comes of Basil’s impossible leniency toward his people! Impertinence! Familiarity! Indecent meddlesomeness! Ah! This unbearable pretense of belonging to the family!” thought Laurence, crimson with fury; and she wrathfully twisted out of his gentle grasp and sat up, frowning and haughty, on the edge of the lounge.
“Go! And send me Célèste before I do you a mischief, you insolent dog!” she cried, pointing to the door with a rigidly extended finger and the mien of an opera-bouffe queen dismissing a slave.
Completely stupefied, Garrassime stared at her, scarcely understanding what she was saying. How could his solicitude have offended her? He raised his eyes in involuntary protest; then he backed out of “The Presence,” pausing on the threshold merely long enough to make a very low and final obeisance, and was gone.
A few minutes later Célèste came tripping in, her pert face alight with curiosity; but when she caught sight of her lady she uttered a little shriek of distress thin and as piercing as a penny whistle.
“But mon Dieu! What has Madame la Princesse done to herself!” she cried, her large dark eyes widened to their uttermost extent.
Laurence rose impatiently, marched to the door, which she double-locked, and returned to the fire-corner, suddenly quite cool and collected.
“I have had a terrible fright, Célèste,” she said. “This is a dreadful place; not fit for me to live in!”
“Ah, Madame la Princesse may well say so!” the maid affirmed, hands and eyes uplifted in dramatic acquiescence. “Ah, but a place! A place of devils and devilries!” she continued, volubly; for though Laurence so angrily resented familiarity from her inferiors, to her maid and quasi-confidante of secrets perhaps weightier than those of the toilet, she was decidedly “uncorseted,” both physically and morally. “We shall all perish if Monsieur le Prince keeps us incarcerated here much longer. And those peasants, so ferocious, so savage! Not that some of them are not good-looking enough; the grooms, too. Madame la Princesse has not perhaps noticed the grooms?”