“She shall not,” he said passionately; “she shall not be crushed into submission to the dictation of that woman.”
“And how do you propose to avert the impending catastrophe?” I asked, tormenting him at will, for he was wrought up to the height of his temper.
“I mean to marry mademoiselle and carry her off to France,” he exclaimed in so clear a tone that I laid my hand on his sleeve; but at that instant there was a scuffle behind us, and I turned in time to see Touchet, with his sword half bare, staring angrily at a tall stranger who was muttering an apology in Russian, entirely uncomprehended by the angry Frenchman.
“What is it, Touchet?” I called out to him.
“The fellow was so busy listening to you, M. le Vicomte, that he nearly walked over me, and now only stands gibbering,” my equerry answered angrily.
I translated what the Russian had said, and Touchet let him pass, but not before I had obtained a view of his face, and he looked back at me again after getting past my attendant. He appeared to me a poor gentleman who might be of the suite of one of the noblemen.
“A word to you, M. de Lambert,” I said to my companion as we went on; “do not speak your mind so freely in Moscow.”
CHAPTER IV.
THE LIVONIAN PEASANT GIRL.
In the next few days matters went from bad to worse. M. de Lambert found it impossible either to see mademoiselle or to communicate with her, and I saw that he was chafing under the restraint and would break out into some act of folly. For my own part, I regarded his case as desperate. The czar was not the man to let his wishes be thwarted; his temper was as violent as his rule was absolute, and it grew more clear every day that his preference for Najine was a fact, and not fancy. That the Zotofs would be complaisant was apparent enough, and mademoiselle’s own feeling was, after all, of little consequence. Watching the affair in its slow development, and being a constant witness of M. Guillaume’s anxiety and disappointment, I found myself becoming almost as interested as my wife. So it was that I promised M. de Lambert to aid him, if I could, knowing that my chances of seeing mademoiselle would be far better than his, even though Madame Zotof regarded me with an eye of suspicion and was openly hostile to Madame de Brousson, having previously discovered her championship of mademoiselle’s lover. Zénaïde was a little chagrined that she had betrayed herself by too much zeal, but was the more urgent for me to embrace the opportunities that she had lost. Having all her friends among the women, she heard the gossip of the hour and was able to aid me with many suggestions. Indeed, it was to her that the King of France owed the greater part of the information about the intrigues with Augustus of Saxony and the negotiations with the Republic of Poland; her quick eye and attentive ear caught the drift of the undercurrent. She was the first to see Catherine Shavronsky, and returned from Mentchikofs house with her mind full of the singular peasant girl.
“You must see her,” she said to me; “she is not so poor a rival for Najine as I supposed.”