“With all my heart,” responded the Prince, with his most charming smile. “Well, I have come to tell you I shall not be at the Opera to-night. I have to see a great many people, make a great many arrangements. I cannot tell you how sorry I am; I know it is one of your great nights. But you understand—business must always come before pleasure.”
Madame assented good humouredly. “It has always been so with you, Boris, at any rate. You are a great man in many ways, perhaps a little too optimistic, a little too sure of yourself.”
The Prince smiled his confident smile. “A pessimist is not much good in this world, my dear. Believe in yourself and your star, and you will become a leader of men.”
“Perhaps,” sighed Madame Quéro. She was beginning to be very attracted to him again. He was certainly in a most charming mood to-night; she felt herself carried back to the old days when she had been infatuated with him, with his virility, his assurance, even the hint of that brutal strength which lay at the back of his plausible exterior.
At length the Prince rose. “I wonder whether you would do me a little kindness. It is a long time since we had a meal together and I told them at home I should not be back till late to-night, after the meeting here. You have given instructions to Stepan to be in readiness?”
Yes, she had given instructions to Stepan.
“Then you will give me a little snack before you start for the Opera? No prolonged, heavy meal, we have neither of us time for that, just something light.”
“But, of course, Boris. You are always welcome to my hospitality, such as it is. You will be here an hour before I have to start for the Opera?”
The hypocrite bent low and kissed the hand she extended to him. “I will be here on the tick of the clock. Au revoir, my old sweetheart, who has come back to me again.”
He went out, intent on his dark schemes. He plumed himself on the fact that he had played his rôle quite well. And she, this treacherous woman who had sold him on account of her sudden fancy for Corsini, had also played her part perfectly. It was diamond cut diamond, but he was sure he would cut deeper of the two.