"A moment!" he said, as he sprang again to his feet with the lithe alertness which distinguished him. Prince Ivan ran to a corner where, with the brusque hand of a master, he had tossed a score of priceless furs to the ground. He rose again and came towards Theresa with a flash of something scarlet in his hand.
"You will pardon us, madam," he said, "you are our guest—the sole lady in our camp. I lay it upon your good nature to forgive our rude makeshifts."
And again Prince Ivan knelt. He encased Theresa's feet in dainty Oriental slippers, small as her own, and placed them delicately and respectfully on the couch.
"There, that is better!" he said, standing over her tenderly.
"I thank you, Prince." She answered the action more than the words, smiling upon him with her large graciousness; "I am not worthy of so great favour."
"My lady," said the Prince, "it is a proverb of our house that though one day Muscovy shall rule the world, a woman will always rule Muscovy. I am as my fathers were!"
Theresa did not answer. She only smiled at the Prince, leaning a little further back and resting her head easily upon the palm of her hand. The servitors brought in more lamps, which they slung along the ridge-pole of the roof, and these shedding down a mellow light enhanced the ripe splendour of Theresa's beauty.
Prince Ivan acknowledged to himself that he had spoken the truth when he said that he had never seen a woman so beautiful. Margaret?—ah, Margaret was well enough; Margaret was a princess, a political necessity, but this woman was of a nobler fashion, after a mode more truly Russ. And the Prince of Muscovy, who loved his fruit with the least touch of over-ripeness, would not admit to himself that this woman was one hour past the prime of her glorious beauty. And indeed there was much to be said for this judgment.
Theresa's splendid head was set against the dusky skins. Her rich hair of Venice gold, escaping a little from the massy carefulness of its ordered coils, had been blown into wet curls that clung closely to her white neck and tendrilled about her broad low brow. The warmth of the tent and the soft luxury of the rich rugs had brought a flush of red to a cheek which yet tingled with the volleying of the Baltic raindrops.
"Alexis never told me this woman was so beautiful," he said to himself. "Who is she? She cannot be of Courtland. Such a marvel could not have been hidden from me during all my stay there!"