‘For me,’ said Othmar. ‘What have you said yourself? I do not want wealth; I want good blood, beauty, and innocence; they are all possessed by Mademoiselle de Valogne. Go; your errand will please them. They will pardon some breach of etiquette. It will be a mission which you will like.’
As the Baron, a little later, rolled through the gates of Millo in full state, his shrewd knowledge of men and their madnesses made him think:
‘So the Princess Napraxine evidently will have nothing to say to him! A la bonne heure! There are some honest women left then amongst the great ladies. She could so easily have ruined him! He takes a droll way to cure himself, but it is not a bad one. The worst is, that this sort of cure never lasts long, and when she can make the unhappiness of two persons, instead of only the happiness of one, perhaps Madame la Princesse will be tempted to make it!’
CHAPTER XIX.
On the following day Platon Napraxine drove home from Monte Carlo at sunset with a piece of news to carry there which amused and unusually animated him.
He went up the stone stairs of the terrace of La Jacquemerille with the quick step of one who is eager to deliver himself of his tidings, and approached, with a rapidity unfrequent with him, the spot where his wife sat with her guests under the rose and white awning beside the marble balustrade and the variegated aloes.
The Princess Nadine was also full of unwonted animation; her cheek had its sea-shell flush, her eyes a vague and pleased expectancy; she was laughing a little and listening a good deal; besides her usual companions, she had there a group of Austrian and Russian diplomatists and some Parisian boulevardiers. They were just taking their leave as she was taking her tea, but it was not very greatly of them that she was thinking: she was thinking as she heard the roll of her husband’s carriage wheels beneath the carouba trees;——‘Ten to one Othmar will return with him.’
She lost her gay expression as she saw that he was alone.