Vera whose heart beat more quickly as the prince passed through her room, would soon fall asleep, but her slumber was sometimes troubled by strange thrills, indefinite thoughts, and modest fears.
For nearly a month this had gone on. The prince had had a final interview with his wife to arrange everything in conformity with his design, when one evening, he having taken the farmer's beautiful daughter to the Vaudeville Theatre, it was past midnight when they got back home.
Pierre Olsdorf had never been more affectionate and attentive. They walked back from the theater. When he offered his arm to the young girl as they started for the Rue Auber, going by the boulevard and the Place de l'Opera, she had to summon all her strength to master the beating of her heart, which threatened to betray her by its violent throbs.
Vera could no longer hide the truth from herself. She loved, with a timid and chaste but deep love, the man who for some weeks had shared her life. She did not ask of herself now what he wished to do with her. She cared little. She saw him every day, almost every hour, and she had but one fear—that she might awaken from this delicious dream.
As for the prince, he seemed uneasy, preoccupied, and impatient.
When they had got back to the house, Vera, as usual, went to her room, whither Julie followed her. In a few minutes she was in bed, feverish and thrilling, for Pierre, before she left him, had kissed her with a sort of passionate tenderness which had troubled her deeply. At the long, close touch of his lips on her forehead the sweet virginal eyes had closed, and she had nearly fainted.
Scarcely a quarter of an hour had passed, when the door of her room opened.
It was the prince. As usual, no doubt, he would walk through the room to his own, and Vera was smiling already in reply to the "good-night" that he always waved to her as he walked by, when the husband of Lise Barineff, instead of going on his way, approached the bed and seated himself on the chair near it, on which, in womanly disorder, warm and fragrant, was heaped the silken dressing-gown which the young girl had just thrown off.
Vera, greatly surprised, half raised herself, adorably beautiful in this movement of chaste trust; and, in reply to the questioning look in her large eyes, Pierre Olsdorf said, taking her hand:
"Do not fear, dear child; listen to me."