At last the old French woman turned to the observation of the table, which permitted the young girl to devote herself a little to Lensky, rapidly becoming more gloomy; then the door opened and the butler announced Count Pachotin. The virtuoso felt not at all pleasantly toward the young dandy when he asked him unusually kindly and sympathetically whether he was contented with the result of his last concert tour.
After Pachotin had fulfilled the condescension, which as a finely cultivated nobleman he thought he owed to an artistic star he turned to Natalie and from then ignored Lensky as completely as the Marquise de C. had done. Lensky meanwhile morosely pulled long horse-hairs from the holes in the thread-bare arms of the damask chair. He was very helpless in spite of his already great renown. His actions in society were solely confined to playing and permitting the ladies to rave over him. He did not understand how to take an inconspicuous part in the conversation, and to cross the room for any other purpose than to take up his violin made him quite giddy.
The table meanwhile still refused to move. The excitement became general.
"Voyons, M. Lensky," called the Marquise de C., suddenly turning to the young artist, lorgnette at her eyes; "if you should give us a little music perhaps it would act upon the legs of this stiff-necked table."
A man quick at repartee would have answered the silly remark with a gay jest. But Lensky grew deathly pale, sprang up; in that moment the resisting sacrifice of magnetism began to totter and tremble.
Even Pachotin left his place near Natalie in order to watch closely the interesting spectacle. The magnetizers rose and, with earnest, triumphant faces, accompanied the table, which now seemed to have entered into the spirit of the affair and took the most remarkable steps with its wooden legs.
"Vous partez déjà?" asked Natalie, coming up to the virtuoso.
"I am no longer needed," said Lensky, with a glance at the table, and bowed without touching the outstretched hand of the young girl.
Without, in the vestibule just as he was about to put his arms in the overcoat which the servant held out to him, he saw the princess, who had hastened after him.
