Paul, as he retired with the cards crushed in his hand, thought to himself with grim amusement, ‘If only those beaux messieurs would understand that Nadège Fedorowna cares no more for any one of them than she will care for those flowers when they are yellow and withered to-morrow.’
‘If somebody would bring me the corn-cockles!’ she herself thought, with a little laugh.
At that moment there came a timid tap on the door which separated her boudoir from the great salons. She recognised it with a little shiver, such as a nervous woman will give when she sees an unpleasant or uncouth animal; only she was not nervous herself; she was merely impressionable and irritated.
‘Come in,’ she said impatiently.
The door opened behind the satin hangings, and Platon Napraxine entered.
‘How many times must I request you to pay me the common respect of sending to know if I be visible?’ she said, with that hauteur which he dreaded, as a prisoner in the fortress of Peter and Paul dreads the sight of the knout.
‘I beg your pardon,’ he murmured humbly. ‘It is not our day, but I thought you would allow me to take advantage of the French New Year to—to—to bring you a little gift. Do not be angry, Nadine——’
He spoke very submissively and with a timidity which made his high-coloured cheeks grow paler. He had for many a year abandoned all hope of being any nearer to the woman who was his wife than the marble of the steps which she descended to her carriage; yet he could not help having, every now and then, a foolish impulse to approach her in affection, a wistful fancy that perhaps—perhaps—at last——
He laid on her knee as he spoke a velvet case, with her crown and initials in gold upon it.