'Are prince-consorts always deposed from any throne they have of their own?' said Madame Olga, in the tone that he hated. 'If I were you I should rebuild Romaris. I wonder so devoted a wife has not done so years ago.'
'There is nothing at Romaris to rebuild.'
'Decidedly,' thought his companion, 'he hates Romaris, and has no love of his own race. Did he drown Vassia Kazán in the sea there?'
Unsparingly she renewed the subject to Wanda herself.
'You should settle the French properties on little Victor, and give him the Sabran title,' she urged to her. 'I told Réné the other day that I thought it very strange he should not care to have one of his sons named after him.'
Wanda answered coldly enough: 'In my will, if I die before him, everything goes to the Marquis de Sabran. He will make what division he pleases between his children, subject of course to Bela's rights of primogeniture.'
Madame Brancka was silent for a moment from surprise.
'It is odd that he should not care for Romaris,' she said, after a long pause. 'You have much more trust in him, Wanda, than it is wise to put in any man that lives.'
'Whom one trusts with oneself, one may well trust with everything else,' said her sister-in-law in a tone which closed discussion. But when she was left alone the thorn remained in her. She thought with perplexity:
'No, he does not care for Romaris. He dislikes its very name. He would never hear of one of the children bearing it. There must be something he does not say.'