She had studied the natures of men too profoundly not to know this.
There was the sound of wheels in the central court, and various doors opened and shut in the apartments leading to the grand salon where they were. Then the groom of the chambers, in his black uniform, only relieved by his silver chain of office and the key embroidered on his collar, preceded and announced Othmar.
Nadine half rose, leaning on one arm on the cushion.
'My dear Otho, this is charming of you! I did not expect you until to-morrow,' she said, with a smile of welcome, as she put out her left hand to him. Othmar kissed her fingers with warmth and deference, then saluted with ceremony the Princess Lobow.
'I came from Moscow more quickly than I could have hoped to do,' he said, as he seated himself beside his wife. 'An Imperial train was leaving for the north, and the Grand Duke Alexis offered me a place in it. Are you well? It is three months and more since we met.'
'I am as well as it is ever permitted one to be in a century in which the nerves play the most prominent rôle. And the children?'
'Perfectly well, and perfectly happy. They are not yet at the age of nerves. But I have telegraphed all news to you; there is nothing left to say, except that absence——'
'Oh, do not make me compliments like a berger d'éventail! We will take all that for granted.'
The reproof to him was the same sort of mockery with which she had been always wont to repress the attempts at tenderness of Napraxine; but his mother, listening, heard the difference in the accent, and watching, saw the difference in the smile with which they were spoken.