Mme. Meyrin very soon wondered why she did not see the princess as often as usual; but when her brother-in-law told her that the prince was in Paris she understood Lise's reserve, and was careful not to question Paul, whose explanation might have been of a sort to alarm her modesty as a mother. She was satisfied to tell the young painter each day to give her kind regards, and her husband's and daughter's, to the princess, whose departure for Russia she now began to fear.
Things might have gone on thus for a long time, for Paul, though well posted by the princess in what was occurring, kept silence; when one morning, toward the end of breakfast, which the family took together, Frantz read in the St. Petersburg correspondence of the "Figaro" the news of the coming divorce between the Prince and Princess Olsdorf. The real cause of the separation had been kept so secret that the correspondent of the journal stated, without comment, that a decree would be pronounced against the prince, following upon a petition to the Holy Synod by his wife, involving very grave charges.
"Well, here is a pretty thing!" the violinist could not help exclaiming. "Just listen."
And as his young daughter had a moment ago left the room with her grandmother, he read again, aloud this time, the paragraph in question. Then, speaking to his brother, he added: "Well, the princess is a good one. She is to petition for a divorce! What has the husband been up to? Don't you know anything of the facts?"
"Yes, I know a good deal; all, indeed," Paul replied, embarrassed.
"Then why did you not tell us?" Mme. Meyrin asked, in a prim tone.
"Simply because the princess asked me not to say anything until the thing was done with."
"Does her husband know nothing at all about her?"
"Most likely."
"And he lets his wife get a divorce against him like that? I have heard you say yourself that he was a charming man, and had no vices. There is something behind this. You know something more than you say."