How long he sat there he never knew; he waited in the vague hope of a gentler word, a more kind dismissal, at least for permission to return. He did not remember that he would only increase his offence, prolong his error. The bright day was shining without on all the gay array of shining marbles, many-coloured azaleas, dancing waves, white sails, blue skies; within, the shaded light fell subdued and roseate on the porcelains, the tapestries, the bronzes, the stands and bowls of flowers, all the fantastic details of modern luxury. He might have been in a peasant’s isba in the midst of a frozen plain for aught he knew. Two or three clocks chimed five, and the carillon in the stable-tower of La Jacquemerille answered them; for anything he could tell, he might have been there a whole day or only fifteen minutes.
Whilst it was still quite daylight, servants came in and brought lamps with rose-coloured shades and set them down noiselessly and went away. Seliedoff raised his head, but he did not leave his place; he sat like a figure of stone. He heard a sound of voices and of laughter; through the parted curtains of the portières he saw the vista of the three drawing-rooms which opened out of the small one in which he was. People were coming in and standing about conversing with one another in the rose-hued light of the lamps, lit whilst the sun was still shining. He then remembered that it was Thursday, her day, on which, from five to seven, the dessus du panier could come there and idle and flirt and sip caravan tea, or syrups or liqueurs, and have the honour of a word from her, perhaps even of a word of welcome. As he looked and remembered, she herself entered the little room in which he sat, and which was the nearest to her own apartments. She cast a glance upon him, severe, astonished, then passed through to the larger salons. She wore a pale-mauve-coloured velvet gown, with a jabot of old point lace, and the same lace peeping here and there from the folds of its skirts; she had some natural yellow roses at her throat; she had her hair à l’empire; she had never looked lovelier, colder, more utterly beyond the imitation of other women or the solicitations of men. He watched her receive the little crowd of people already there, and those who came after them; he heard her sweet chill voice, now and then her laugh; he saw all the men whom he hated gathered about her; and the murmur of the voices, the whispers of the discreet mirth, the scent of the flower-laden air, the rosy gleams of the lamplight, the frou-frou of the dresses, the tinkle of the tea-cups, came to his ear as the sounds of the outer world come to a sick man in fever.
Geraldine was not there. She had always prohibited his appearance more than once a month at her jour.
‘I will have no one seen in my rooms as regularly and certainly as Paul,’ she had always said to him. Paul was her groom of the chambers. ‘Whenever any man is seen perpetually anywhere, as immovably as though he were a clock or a bracket, he becomes ridiculous; and the woman who allows him to be there, still more so.’
Geraldine had been forced to obey, with whatever reluctance; usually he had consoled himself, as well as he could, with the tripot. A man is not often jealous of a day in which he knows there exists for him, in his absence, that safety which lies in numbers.
Boris Seliedoif sat on where he was with dogged persistence, his eyes riveted on those pretty salons in which the comedy of society was being acted, and where he perceived nothing save that one form, when it came within his sight, with the grace of movement, the charm of attitude, which were especial to Nadine Napraxine. He thought the coming and going of her many guests would never end; that the buzz of the many voices would never cease. Once or twice men and women whom he knew came into the little room, and sat down there for a few moments; then he was forced to rise and speak to them, to say he knew not what. But he took his seat again immediately, and resumed his silent vigil. Some of them looked at him in surprise, for his expression was strange, and his black Georgian eyes were misty yet fierce; but he was not conscious of the notice he excited, he was only conscious that she never glanced towards him, never summoned him, once.
The two hours seemed to him endless. When seven had struck, the last carriage rolled away from before the windows, the last lingering visitor, the Duc de Prangins—he who had killed young d’Ivrea—made his profound bow over her hand, and took himself and his elegant witticisms and his admirable manners back to the Hotel de Paris at Monte Carlo. When the doors had closed on him, Nadine Napraxine stood a moment alone in the centre of her salon; then swiftly turned, and came towards Seliedoff. He rose, and awaited her sullenly.
Her right hand was clenched as though it grasped the handle of a knout, and was about to use it; a terrible anger shone from the lustre of her eyes; her lips were pale with the force of her displeasure.
‘How dare you! how dare you!’ she said between her teeth.
So might an empress have spoken to a moujik.