Mme. Meyrin, in fact, soon grew stronger. Pressing in hers the hands of Soublaieff's daughter, who tended her affectionately, she again went to the bedside.
The doctor was not mistaken. In a few days' time the young prince's convalescence began. It was to be rapid, as the time was the beginning of the summer; but one might have thought that it was his mother's life that revivified the child, for each day Lise grew paler and weaker. When, her son and daughter on either side of her, she walked down to the park, she looked like a sick woman whose uncertain steps two guardian angels were supporting. If they said to her, in their simplicity, "Mother, you won't leave us again, will you?" she covered them with kisses instead of replying. The unhappy woman was in despair at the thought of being forced to part again from them, now that they were doubly dear to her.
One day, as they extended their walk rather further than usual, her son drew her toward the great avenue of larches and fir-trees, where she had sunk, a few years ago, into the arms of Paul Meyrin. As they were about to pass into its accursed shadows, the ex-Princess Olsdorf, suddenly remembering, cried:
"Oh, not there—with you—never!"
She gently drew back Alexander, who did not understand his mother's emotion.
This day she told herself that she must be going.
Now that her child's health was no longer a subject of inquietude, all her surroundings reminded her cruelly of the past. In this château, the doors of which pity alone had opened to her again, she had reigned as its sovereign; in these halls, now deserted, she had received the representatives of the highest Russian nobility; she had been paid court to and welcomed throughout this domain whither she had not dared to return save in fear and trembling. How far away were all these things now. She was no longer the Princess Olsdorf, and yet no one ventured to call her Mme. Meyrin. By Vera Soublaieff's directions, she was addressed in her maiden name—the Countess Lise Barineff—so that in the eyes of the servants, whose duty it was to wait on her, she might not appear to have descended from her social rank. Even the respect she was the object of on the part of every one became a painful humiliation to her.
Besides, in Paris she had duties to fulfill toward that other child, who was no less than Alexander and Tekla flesh of her flesh, and one of the objects of the only love henceforward permitted her. It was true that nearly every day Mme. Daubrel had sent good news of her daughter, but she had scarcely mentioned her husband. Lise did not know how he had taken her departure, and Marthe, in her latest letter, had said: "As you son's life is saved, do not delay your return." Resigned as she was, complete, too, as was her abandonment beyond recall all hope of happiness in her married life, she was alarmed by this pressing summons. She foreboded some new misfortune.
That very evening Mme. Meyrin told her mother of her resolution to leave Pampeln next day, and the general's wife, whose heart could not but be touched by her daughter's conduct, found a few kind words to say to her. Lise had shrunk from letting her know how matters were between herself and her husband. With heroic courage she affected to be quite at ease about the future. Paul, it was true, had committed a fault, as so many other men had done before him, but he had come back to her, and all was forgotten. The ex-Countess Barineff believed in this untruth, dictated by her daughter's pride, and promised to keep up with her an affectionate and frequent correspondence.
After this interview with her mother, Lise went to Soublaieff's daughter in her rooms.