“Yes, your highness,” faltered the cook, evidently afraid that her service would be accounted a crime, “but if your highness is offended at them, I will cook for them no more—forever!”
“Why not?” asked Sophia maliciously; “could you not the more easily poison them, if I desired it?”
Advotia stared, and then crossed herself in the orthodox fashion.
“I have never poisoned anyone before,” she said piously; “but if you desire it, little mother——”
She broke off, folding her fat hands, the picture of submission. Ma foi, I thought, with what security one eats soup in Moscow! But Sophia received the offer with perfect composure.
“Who brought this locket to the goldsmith?” she asked, showing it.
“The Princess Voronin,” said Advotia, so glibly that I could have wrung her fat neck for her.
“She knows nothing, Princess,” protested Maître le Bastien, “she was never in my workshop.”
“You hear what your master says; how do you know, then?” asked the czarevna of our cook.
“There is a keyhole in the door,” said Advotia, with perfect simplicity.