Without another word Madame Quéro went to her dressing-room. From there she despatched a hasty note to Prince Zouroff.
CHAPTER XIII
La Belle Quéro and the Prince Zouroff were sitting together in the boudoir of the small villa on the outskirts of St. Petersburg.
They were both smoking cigarettes. Madame Quéro looked anxious and perturbed, Zouroff surly and annoyed.
“Inez, you are very unreasonable. Why have you dragged me here at this time of night? If your note had not said ‘very urgent,’ I should not have taken myself away from more important matters.”
La Belle Quéro flicked the ash of her cigarette on the carpet. “Once, my friend, you would have come on the slightest request from me. I should not have been compelled to mark my note urgent, eh?”
The Prince answered a little awkwardly. “Don’t let us be too sentimental, dear child. We have been good friends, we have got to a closer degree of comradeship. Is it not an ideal relationship? Well, what have you to tell me? You have not summoned me here for nothing, I am sure?”
“Not even for the pleasure of your society, my most charming and exquisite Boris?” inquired the prima donna, in a tone of raillery.