Lise Barineff could not foresee what effect the coupling of her name with that of Dumesnil was to have upon the vain countess.
Certainly the author of the article knew more about the affair than he cared to tell.
To make an end of the matter, Paul held out his hands to his future wife, and they fixed forthwith the date of the marriage for a fortnight later.
All that was needful then to be done was for the artist to find suitable rooms, which he did at 112 Rue d'Assas, one of them being fit for a studio, and to furnish them.
In the intervening fortnight Paul saw his mother and his brother several times, but not once his sister-in-law. Though Mme. Meyrin and Frantz had promised to be present at the marriage, Barbe was firm; she would stay at home.
Lise and Paul felt that the ceremony ought to be as quiet a one as possible. For that matter the chapel where it was to take place would scarcely have allowed it to be otherwise. It was a place of primitive simplicity and would not have held fifty people.
Few of our readers know, even by name, this little chapel of the Greek Church, which stands on the left bank of the Seine, in the Rue Racine, on the second floor.
In a set of very common rooms, the residence of the Patriarch of Constantinople, one had been turned into a chapel. Where the bed used to stand, an altar had been reared, with its Byzantine ornaments polished and shining for the occasion.
When the bride and bridegroom arrived the priest was awaiting them, and, being in mourning, he wore a great black veil, which gave him almost a lugubrious look. The walls were covered with a grayish paper, and hung sparsely with tawdry religious pictures in gold frames. The room had a wretched look, which struck Lise. This was very different from the splendor her mother had made a show of in the Church of Isaac at St. Petersburg.
In spite of herself she could not but recall that day. Representatives of the oldest Russian families, nearly all of them connected by blood or marriage one with the other, were present to do honor to Prince Olsdorf. The arch-priest who officiated wore the richest of his sacerdotal ornaments; the air was heavy with perfumes; from amid women of the highest title and most exclusive fashion in St. Petersburg, her mother smiled on her proudly. Now the scene was a furnished room, the priest, a priest of low grade, wrapped in black. There were a score or so of onlookers, acquaintances of her husband, artists, curious or indifferent, as the case might be, all of them, except Mme. Meyrin, the mother, Frantz, and the good and gentle Mme. Daubrel, who, bent in prayer over her chair, sent up to Heaven sincere supplications for the happiness of her friend, as she herself, too, cast a sad look backward upon the past.