"Easily entertained," the Countess says, crossly. "They are playing bézique for raisins. It makes a change for my brother; his physician has sent him to the country for the benefit of the air and a regular mode of life. He has come to the right place, eh?" Again she laughs; her breath fails her; she closes her eyes and leans back, white as a corpse.
Lato shudders at the sight, he could hardly have told why. His youth rises up before him. There was a time when he loved that woman with enthusiasm, with self-devotion. That woman! He scans her now with a kind of curiosity. She is still beautiful, but the wan face has fallen away, the complexion all that can be seen of it beneath its coating of violet powder--is faded, the delicate nose is too thick at the tip, the nostrils are slightly reddened, the small mouth is constantly distorted in an affected smile, the arms from which the wide sleeves of the morning-gown have fallen back are thin, and the nails upon the long, slender hands remind one of claws. Even the white gown looks faded, crushed, as by the constant nervous movement of a restless, discontented wearer. Her entire personality is constrained, feverish.
Involuntarily Lato compares this woman with Olga. He sees with his mind's eye the young girl, tall and slender as a lily, her white gowns always so pure and fresh, sees the delicately-rounded oval of her girlish face, her clear, large eyes, the innocent tenderness of her smile. And Selina could malign that same Olga! His blood boils. As if Olga were to blame for the wretched, guilty passion in his breast! His thoughts are far away from his present surroundings.
"Seven thousand five hundred," the triumphant voice of the major's wife calls out in the next room. "If this goes on, Count Franz, I shall soon stop playing for raisins! Ah!" as, turning her head, she perceives Treurenberg; "you have a visitor, Lori."
"Yes," Countess Lori replies, "but do not disturb yourselves, nor us."
The rattle of the counters continues.
"I must speak with your husband," Lato says presently; "if you know where he is----"
"He will be here in ten minutes; you need have no fear, he is never late," Lori says. "À propos, do you know what I was doing when you came in? Sorting my old photographs." She hands him a picture from the pile beside her. "That is how I looked when you fell in love with me."
He gazes, not without interest, at the pale little picture, which represents a tall, slender, and yet well-developed young girl with delicate, exquisitely lovely features, and with eyes, full of gentle kindliness, looking out curiously, as it were, into the world from beneath their arched eyebrows. An old dream floats through the wretched man's mind.
"It was very like," he says.