“There is more yet to tell. This wretched canaille they call the Lower House, this Foreign Affairs Committee—is subdivided into numerous smaller committees—and the one in charge of our negotiation is virtually Pembroke—Pembroke himself!”
Madame Volkonsky fell back in the carriage. She did not wholly understand what this meant, but she knew from Volkonsky’s manner, assisted by her own slight knowledge, that Pembroke was in some way the arbiter of Volkonsky’s fate.
“And there are documents—letters—that Pembroke has called for, and the State Department has produced—that in the hands of an enemy—”
He struck his knee with his clinched fist. Disgrace stared him in the face—and the Grand Duke himself here—lying would do no good—and when that device would no longer avail him, Volkonsky felt that his situation was indeed desperate.
Both remained silent a long time. The carriage rolled along slowly. The road was smooth and bordered with beech and poplar trees, upon whose silvery branches the first tender shoots were coming out. The air was full of the subtle perfume of the coming leaves. But both the man and the woman were city bred. They neither understood nor cared for such things. Presently Madame Volkonsky touched her husband. Ahead of them they saw two figures. They were Olivia Berkeley and Miles Pembroke, walking gayly along the path, talking merrily. The sight of their innocent gayety smote Madame Volkonsky to the heart with envy. She had never been able to enjoy simple pleasures. A country walk, with a mere nobody, a boy younger than herself, with no one to admire, to notice, could never have pleased her. All her pleasures were of the costly kind—costly in money, in talents, in rank. She blamed fate at that moment for making her that way, and envied instead of despising Olivia.
The two by the roadside bowed—and the two in the carriage returned it smilingly. But the smile died the instant their heads were turned.
Volkonsky said presently to his wife:
“We must not show the white feather. You must sing to-night.”
This brought Madame Volkonsky up with a turn. Her conversation with her husband had quite put out of her mind something that had engrossed her very much, and that was an amateur concert at the British Legation that evening, at which she was to sing, and for which she had been preparing earnestly for weeks. Singing, to her, was the keenest edge of enjoyment. She had begun to feel the delight of the applause, of the footlights, already in anticipation. It is true it was only an amateur concert—but it would be before an audience that was worthy of anybody’s efforts—for was not everybody, even the President and his wife, to be present? And Madame Volkonsky had speedily found out that she would have no rival. She had looked forward with intense anticipation to this triumph—the one pleasure without alloy—the one chance of being justly admired and applauded. But in the last hour all had been forgotten. Even the artist’s instinct was quenched. She turned cold at the idea of singing that night. But with her husband, she felt it was no time to quail. Then Volkonsky explained to her that he must meet Pembroke at six, and would afterward dine alone at home, while she would be on her way to the concert.
“And Elise,” he said—he rarely called her by her name—“while there is yet hope—for he has not so far done anything, and I think he would not willingly make you miserable—if you have an opportunity, make—make an appeal to him.”