“Allons bon!” grumbled Salvières. “You don’t easily give up an idea, do you, Piotr? And now be a good boy; go with Garrassime to put on your things, and you can come with me to the parade-ground at Krasnöe-Sèloe.”
“Yes, Uncle Jean, I’ll put on my things; but I’ll go for a walk with Aunt Tatiana here in the park. She asked me first, you know, and I’m sorry I frightened her.”
He wheeled on his flat little heels, honored his uncle with a perfectly executed military salute, and, going to his aunt, raised his rosy mouth to be kissed; then attended by Garrassime he ran swiftly up-stairs.
“My God!” said Tatiana, as soon as he was out of hearing, “what shall we do with him?”
Her husband rose, and, taking her hand, kissed it tenderly. “My dear Tatiana,” he said, gravely, “we will, as usual, try to do our duty. It is not an easy one, I grant you, but still it must be accomplished somehow or other.”
“Poor little fellow!” she said, rather hopelessly. “Oh, Jean, isn’t it pitiful to think of Basil, who adored him, and now refuses to see him—with that terrible obstinacy and strength of purpose we Palitzins are cursed with? What will come of all this? Tell me that, if you can?”
Jean de Salvières had been asked this question before, but now, as then, he was quite unable to answer it.
“It is so heartbreaking,” continued Tatiana, who evidently did not expect a reply. “That miserable woman who has spoiled all our lives and is now amusing herself at Beaulieu on her yacht—for she has a yacht of her own, if you please—and Basil practically a fugitive after that fatal duel. Tverna closed up and all those splendid plans for the peasants at a standstill. How can she exist with such a remorse? How can she laugh on, trifle with life, think of nothing but her own precious self, and never of her poor little son—of Basil?”
“Que voulez-vous, ma chérie?” he said, soothingly. “She’s made that way. I for one never could endure her; but things will come out right in the end. I have thought more than once lately that we might do worse than go to Salvières for the summer, and ask Régis and Marguerite to stay with us for a while.”
Tatiana turned and gazed at him in undisguised admiration.