"Very well," said Count Larinski. "I must take the risk of meeting in Paris anyone who used to know me before my transformation. I will pack up and depart."
It was indeed a terrible ordeal which he had to face. By a strange irony of fate, all his skilfully conceived plans were imperilled at the very moment when his success seemed absolutely certain. As he had foreseen, M. Moriaz was not at first inclined to consent to the marriage; but Antoinette soon won her father over, and when Count Larinski called at their charming villa at Cormeilles, on the outskirts of Paris, he had as warm a welcome as the most ardent of suitors could desire.
"We must introduce you, my dear Count, to all our friends," said M. Moriaz. "We are giving a party to-morrow evening for the purpose. Of course you will be able to attend?"
"Naturally," said Larinski, "I am looking forward with the greatest eagerness to making the acquaintance of all Antoinette's friends. The only thing I regret is that none of my old comrades in the great struggle against Russia can be at my side at the happiest moment of my life. Alas! many are working in fetters in the mines of Siberia, and the rest are scattered over the face of the globe."
III.--Samuel Brohl Comes to Life
But, though none of Count Larinski's friends was able to appear at Cormeilles, one of Samuel Brohl's old acquaintances came to the party.
On entering the drawing-room, he saw an old, ugly, sharp-faced woman, talking in a corner with Camille Langis. It was Princess Gulof. It seemed to him as if the four walls of the room were rocking to and fro, and that the floor was slipping from under his feet like the deck of a ship in a wild storm. By a great effort of will, he recovered himself.
"Never mind, Samuel Brohl," he said to himself. "Let us see the game through. After all she is very shortsighted, and you may have changed in the last four years."
Antoinette presented him to the Princess, who examined him with her little, blinking eyes, and smiled on him kindly and calmly.
"What luck! What amazing luck!" he thought. "She is now as blind as an owl. If only I can escape from talking to her, I'm safe."