At last the opportunity came that Madame Volkonsky had longed for. They rose and went back to the drawing-rooms. She and Pembroke were in front, and by a gesture she stopped him in a recess under the broad staircase, that was half concealed by great palms. Perhaps Pembroke might have had a weak moment—but as Olivia passed him on Ryleief’s arm, though she avoided his glance he saw her face—he saw a kind of gentle scorn in her delicate nostril—a shade of contempt that hardened his heart toward Madame Volkonsky on the instant.
In a moment or two everybody but themselves had gone. They were virtually alone.
“Pembroke,” said Madame Volkonsky. The tone, and the piercing look which accompanied it, had all the virtue of sincerity.
“You know what I would say,” she continued. “You have everything in your hands. You may drive me away from here—away from respectable society—away from all that makes life tolerable. What have I done to you that you should deny me mercy?”
“But I can do nothing now,” responded Pembroke. “It is too late. And besides I have done very little. If I may say it, M. Volkonsky has done it all himself.”
“Yes,” answered Madame Volkonsky. “It is true he has done it all. But surely, you might make some plea. At least you might try. Oh, you cannot know what it is to feel one’s self sinking, sinking, and not a hand held out to save.”
Pembroke’s face was quite impassive, but his soul was not so impassive. It cost him much to withstand the entreaties of a woman—and a woman who fancied she had some claim upon him, although in the bottom of his heart, he knew that he had got more trouble, pain and annoyance from Elise Koller than he had pleasure by a great deal—more bad than good—more war than peace.
“Madame Volkonsky,” he continued, after a pause, “you are putting your appeal on the wrong ground. You will find that your husband has been mercifully dealt with—and that mercy was for your sake alone. Had you married him in ignorance—but Elise, you knew him as well five years ago as now.”
Pembroke feared that his tone did not convey his unalterable decision, but it did, indeed, to the unfortunate woman before him.
“There is no pity in the world,” she began—and then kept on, gasping with hysterical excitement. “No pity at all. I thought that you at least had a heart—but you are as cold—I never asked for mercy in my life that I was not denied. Even when I humiliated myself before Olivia Berkeley.”