“Is she so charming?” I asked, amused at my wife’s change of sentiment; for she had been contemptuous of this woman.
“It is not altogether that,” Zénaïde replied thoughtfully, “but there is something that I cannot define. She is uneducated, she cannot write, and she wears odd clothing, which does not fit her; yet she has a certain power of fascination. After all, the czar is not over-fastidious.”
“Have a care, madame,” I said, smiling; “he is a good judge of beauty, they tell me.”
Madame’s lip curled scornfully. “There is enough of physical beauty, and it is said that he admired her before he saw Najine.”
“Then it is the less likely that he will return to her, since mademoiselle must be far more lovely,” I remarked.
“That is true,” my wife admitted; “yet do I think that this Catherine would suit his fancy better,—she is of coarser mould. Young enough too, poor child! only seventeen, and has been a slave of the Marshal Sheremetief! And now the czar stoops to admire her. May the saints have mercy on the souls of such men! I would have none!”
I laughed a little, in spite of Zénaïde’s angry glance. “It is well that you are not to judge his imperial Majesty,” I said quietly.
“I pity the girl,” she replied sternly; “but she has no conception of the misery of it—the shame of it! An ignorant peasant girl, how happy would it be for her if she could garner the sheaves in the field! Poor, wretched soul, may the Holy Virgin show her that mercy which man has not shown, and woman cannot show.”
“Your sympathy is wasted, Zénaïde,” I said dryly; “she is not dreaming of garnered sheaves, but of a crown.”
“That may be; yet the woman in my heart pities her,” my wife replied gently, “although I doubt not she would laugh at my pity. Ignorant as she must be, young as she is, I thought her shrewd and, I feared, not over-scrupulous in her ambitions. You must see her and judge for yourself. I do not think you will fall under the glamor of her charms.”