And the fallen favorite did not interrupt her. He listened to every verse, enjoying the last so much that he chuckled with delight.
"Where did you hear that ridiculous thing?"
"You thick-head! Can't you guess? Didn't you yourself send the gypsy girl to me to be educated? We have made a thorough success of it."
"Right. Among the many pleasures that await me here is carrying on that joke to the bitter end. She drove my son to Archangel! Not a word have I heard from him yet. What have you been doing to the wench?"
"Just what you directed. If you want some fun we'll have her in."
"Nothing better just now."
Daimona sent a man in search of Diabolka. Meanwhile she whispered something to Alexis Andreovitch, her painted eyebrows dancing with fiendish glee as she did so.
Araktseieff seemed to enter fully into the joke; he laughed so loud that he made himself quite hoarse, and, striking his fist on the table, shouted:
"Good! Excellent! By Jove! That'll be worth seeing!"
Both were looking grave when the girl came in. She was hardly recognizable. A young lady in a long dress, wearing mittens, on her head the snood of a Russian maiden. She held both hands, in national style, hidden in the long sleeves of her dress, only withdrawing them to kiss the hand of her master and mistress. Her eyes she kept modestly fixed on the ground.