I took the bull by the horns. “Certainly, mademoiselle,” I said with a bow, “but it will not be completed or fastened,” and I held out the two pieces of that ill-starred pear with a malicious smile.
They looked at each other and at me for a moment with blank faces, and then they broke out with irresistible, delicious, rippling laughter.
“What on earth shall we do?” cried Vassalissa; “the deluge and no ark! Monsieur, we have a fable that when the Evil One, in the form of a mouse, gnawed a hole in the ark, Uzh, the snake, saved the ship by thrusting his head into the place. Find us a snake therefore, good goldsmith, or our ark will surely sink. Mend us the pear, or——”
“Pshaw!” interrupted Mlle. Daria, with an imperious gesture, “what difference? I care not a straw! Finish it, monsieur, and send it to me at your leisure.”
“Daria!” sharply ejaculated her smaller companion, suddenly grown cautious.
And Daria bit her lip and turned crimson.
“Mademoiselle may trust me,” I said, drawing myself up to my full height, which compelled them both to look up at me.
She gave me a swift, penetrating glance, and her face, by nature haughty, suddenly relaxed and a smile, like sunshine, shone on it.
“I do, monsieur,” she said, with her queenly air. “You will send the locket, by a safe hand, to the house of the Prince Voronin, to be delivered only to me—the Princess Daria.”
Her companion fairly gasped, her blue eyes big with amazement, at mademoiselle’s daring.