“What man?” she cried fiercely. “Are there not hundreds and thousands of men? What manner of man, stupid, and of what condition? A varlet or a gentleman? A serf or a freedman?”
“He might have been one, and he might have been the other,” I stammered slowly, as if the Russ tied my tongue. “I do not rightly remember, your highness.”
She rose from her chair at this and stamped her foot at me, calling me, durak, which may be interpreted as “ninny,” and then she swept up to Maître le Bastien and opened the locket so sharply before his face that he started back as if she had snapped a pistol under his nose. She held up the trinket, displaying the beautiful face of the Princess Daria.
“How dared you take mine out for this?” she thundered, fixing her little eyes on him with the fierceness of a tigress, ready to spring.
“Tell her that it was a mistake,” I whispered in French, “that it was intended for another setting.”
“Hold your tongue, varlet,” said the czarevna, casting a fierce glance at me, though she understood not a word.
“Many things are brought to me, madame,” said Le Bastien slowly; “this miniature must have been put in the wrong locket. I have two apprentices, and sometimes, between us all, errors are made.”
“Where, then, is my portrait?” she demanded, fastening her eyes on his face, as if she meant to read his very soul.
Here, in spite of her rebuke, I interposed, bowing profoundly.
“Pardon me, your highness,” I said blandly; “I think I know where the picture lies safely at Maître Bastien’s quarters, if we may be permitted to look for it.”