‘What can possibly be the matter, Platon?’ she said, with a vague sense of alarm, but with her inevitable mockery of him dominating her transient anxiety. ‘Have you had a culotte yonder? Has Athenais gone away with my jewel-safe? Or have our friends the Nihilists fired Zaraizoff?’
Napraxine gave her his hand to help her to alight.
‘Do not jest,’ he said simply. ‘Boris has shot himself.’
‘Boris?—Boris Fédorovitch?’
She spoke in astonishment and anger rather than sorrow: an impatient frown contracted her delicate brows, though she grew ashen pale. Why would men do these things?
Napraxine was silent, but when they had entered the house he spoke very sadly, almost sternly.
‘This afternoon he had lost a hundred thousand francs; no doubt on purpose to have an excuse. The ruse can deceive nobody. A Count Seliedoff could lose as much all day for a year, and make no sign. He shot himself in the gardens, within a few yards of us all.’
He paused and looked at his wife. A shadow passed over her face without changing its narcissus-like fairness; she shrugged her shoulders ever so slightly, her eyes had had for a moment an expression of awe and regret, but, beyond any other sentiment with her, were her impatience and irritation.
‘Why will men be so stupid?’ she thought. ‘As if it did any good! The foolish boy!’
‘Nadine,’ murmured her husband in a voice that was timid even in its expostulation and reproach. ‘I am sorry for Boris; for the other I have never cared, but for Boris;—you know that I promised his mother to take what care I could of him—and now—and now—and so young as he was!—and how shall I tell her?—My God!’