The guides did not bother Simon, as long as he was with the famous actress. Valeria Petrovna was the idol of the Russian public, and Simon shone with her reflected glory in the eyes of the two interpreters.
He dined each evening with the Duke, and they went alternately to a theatre or the opera, the latter being one of Simon’s greatest interests in life. Afterwards he would call for his beautiful lady at the Arts Theatre, and have supper with her in her apartment, only to leave her in the small hours of the morning.
Six days went by in this manner, but they had failed to secure any further information regarding Rex. De Richleau persisted in his inquiries through the Embassies and Legations, and also through various American and English trading houses to which he obtained introductions; but without result. Rex might have been spirited away by a djinn for all the traces he had left behind him. Simon raised the question tentatively with Valeria Petrovna several times, but she always brushed it aside quickly.
“I ’ave told you — it is not a thing which can be done at once. Leshkin must be in a good ’umour. What do you say — ‘wheedled’, is it not? For this information which you want, at present it is ’opeless — ’e is so jealous, ’e is like a bear.” Then, suspiciously: “Why are you in such a ’urry — are you not ’appy with me?”
Simon hastened to assure her. They had grown very intimate these two — a strong mutual attraction and many hours spent alone together for a number of days in succession is the soil on which intimacy thrives. Never before had Simon met a woman who had at the same time, her beauty, her intellect, and her vitality.
Constantly he put away from him the thought that in a week or so at most he would have to leave Moscow. He grudged every moment of time not spent in her company, and bitterly resented the fact that they were in Moscow and not in London, Berlin, or Paris. In any of the latter cities he could have heaped flowers and gifts upon her — it would then have been his car in which they were driven about, his wines that they would have drunk together, but the limitations of life in Moscow taxed to the utmost his ability to display one-tenth of his innate generosity.
She was appreciative of the ingenuity that he showed to give her pleasure, but her generosity matched his own and she delighted to entertain him as her favoured guest. His subtle brain and mental gymnastics delighted her intellect, his charming humour and diffident, thoughtful kindness made irresistible appeal to her heart.
Kommissar Leshkin hovered in the background of the affair, arriving sometimes unexpectedly at Valeria Petrovna’s flat, or glaring at them from a distance with his red-rimmed eyes when they were lunching at the hotel. Simon disliked the man intensely, and Leshkin displayed an equal hate, but Valeria Petrovna seemed unperturbed. She mocked the Kommissar in her soft Russian tongue when he came on his blustering visits; and Simon smiled his little amused smile as he watched her handling of this undoubtedly clever and powerful man.
It was the seventh evening that Simon and Valeria Petrovna had spent thus delightfully together; he thought that she seemed worried and depressed when he fetched her after the theatre, and taking both her hands in his he asked her gently what it was that troubled her.
“Alas, mon ami,” she said sadly. “I fear that I must love you very much.”