The woman courtesied and went to the door. When she was quite near it, the princess called her back. She came again to her chair.
"Did you notice the count this morning, Nadeska?"
"Yes, your grace."
"Did you observe anything particular?"
"He looked more dandyish, and was rouged more than formerly."
"Nothing else?"
"No!"
"Nadeska, I am terribly afraid he is plotting against us."
"You have always feared so, your grace, every time the count has come to see you; and you are especially afraid now, because you were positive he would not accept the invitation of the prince."
"Well, does it not look like mockery that he is coming? What does he want here? But that is not all. He asked me yesterday again for an enormous sum of money."
"Which I hope you gave him."
"No, Nadeska; my patience is exhausted, as well as my exchequer.
Michail tells me he cannot procure the money."
"He must get it. Consider how much is at stake!"
"But this tyranny is intolerable!" cried the princess, and her large black eyes shone in the reflex of the fire like burning coals.
Nadeska shrugged her shoulders.
"What can you do? You know the count hates you as much as the prince.
If he does not indulge his hate, and if he does not utter the single word which would part mother and son forever, it is not from fear of the disgrace--when has the count ever minded disgrace?--but from fear of poverty, which he hates still more. Let him find out to-day that his silence is to be no longer profitable to him, and to-morrow he will speak!"
The princess knew that her confidante was perfectly right, and she groaned like a tortured prisoner, pressing her thin hands upon each other.
"Oh, Nadeska! Nadeska!" she whined; "why did the count come home at that unlucky moment! Why did you leave your post at that very hour, which was the decisive hour? If I had only had five minutes' warning the count would have found me alone, and with all the suspicions he might have, there would have been no more evidence then than at any previous time."
Nadeska was standing by the side of her mistress and a little back of her. This enabled her to make a scornful face before she replied,
"Your grace will pardon me, but _this_ time there was evidence, even without the sudden coming of the count. It was certainly an ugly accident that the birth of the prince took place just nine months after a strange man had thrown his father out of the window of his own bedroom!"
The remembrance of this tragi-comic accident dispelled for a moment the melancholy of the princess. The half-ludicrous, half-horrible scenes of that mad night passed very clearly before her mind's eye, and the image of the hero of the night--the man of the people, whom she, the high-born princess, had honored so highly--reappeared to her as he had appeared then, the beau ideal of exuberant vigor and manhood.
"I wonder if he is still alive?" she asked, quite lost in her recollection.
"Who, your grace?" asked Nadeska, who knew perfectly well of whom her mistress was thinking.
The princess made no reply, and Nadeska began noiselessly to light the candles in all the rooms. Gradually a voluptuous twilight spread over the salon in which the princess was, which grew brighter and brighter without losing its soft characters, for all the lights were burning in rosy shades. This was the only light which the irritable nerves of the princess could endure; and even during the day, which generally only began for her in the afternoon, the windows were invariably darkened with rosy curtains. Scoffers maintained that the princess avoided a bright light merely because her faded features and injured complexion could not well be exposed to bright day-light.
Nadeska had just lighted the last candle when the maid on duty slipped into the room and whispered something into her ear, for no message was brought directly to the princess.
"What is it, Nadeska?" asked the latter.
"The count wishes to see you," replied her confidante.
The princess trembled.
"What can he want?" she said. "He ought to be at the railway station."
"He probably mistook the hour."
"Maybe! Let him come; but stay in the room."
Upon a nod from Nadeska the maid went out, after waiting humbly at the door. Immediately a gentleman entered rapidly.
He was a tall, slender man, dressed with exquisite taste, who looked at the first glance as if he might be twenty-five, and grew older and older the longer one looked at him, until at last one was disposed to think him sixty years old. This required, however, a very careful examination, as his mask was finished down to the minutest details. His black hair and brows, his curly beard, his snow-white teeth, his broad shoulders and full hips, were triumphs of art; and if his valet had been able to give a little lustre to his eyes, to calm the paralytic trembling of his hands, and to remove the bad, tiny wrinkles which lay like diminutive snakes around his eyes. Count Ladislaus Malikowsky might still have been a dangerous man for women, at least for a certain class. He had been irresistible when a young man; but now nothing was left him of his youth but an insatiate desire for enjoyment, and a reckless profligacy, which went hand in hand with the cool, calculating prudence of old age.
This disgusting caricature of youth approached the princess, kissed her hand courteously, and said, while sinking carefully into one of the arm-chairs before the fire:
"You wonder, Alexandrina, that I do not appear with the others----"
"Indeed I do."
"Do not think it a want of consideration for the betrothed of my son"--the count uttered the last word with a peculiar accent, and never without showing his false, white teeth--"on the contrary, it is the very interest I take in the welfare of the young couple which brings me here, I may say, out of breath. A discovery which I have made--but, Alexandrina, may I beg that that person may leave the room; my communication is strictly confidential," whispered the count, bending over towards the princess.
"Leave us alone, Nadeska; but stay in the ante-room," said the princess.
"Alexandrina," said the count, when Nadeska had gone into the adjoining room to place her ear to the key-hole, "you were not disposed yesterday to help me in my embarrassment. I have lost heavily at cards, and my exchequer is exhausted. Well I might have been offended by your refusal, especially considering the peculiar relations existing between us. But for my part I know how to do with little, and I should not like, for anything in the world, to be troublesome to you, or to my son [here the white teeth actually shone]. I am all the more sorry, therefore, to have to appeal once more to you, not for myself in this case, but for one who has stronger claims than I have."
"I am not so fortunate as to guess even the meaning of your words,"
replied the princess, sinking back into her chair with half-closed eyes.
"Perhaps," said the count, drawing from his coat-pocket a letter, which he opened slowly, as his hands were tightly encased in close-fitting kid-gloves--"perhaps this letter, which was handed me half an hour ago by a young man, may give you the desired explanation. Permit me to read it to you."
The count did not wait for an answer, but adjusted his gold eye-glasses on his nose, and read, glancing every now and then over the paper at the princess:
"Most noble count:--At a moment when his highness, Prince Waldenberg, is bringing home his fair betrothed, the Baroness Helen Grenwitz, to present her to his mother, the princess, it cannot be but desirable that all the members of the family should be united by that harmony without which even less important festivities are often very sadly interrupted. You yourself, most noble count, set an example, when you kindly dropped a veil over certain events which took place in the night, from the 21st to the 22d November, 1820, in the Letbus mansion in St. Petersburg. I should like to follow your example, if circumstances permitted. But I have no alternative, and see myself compelled to present my business personally to you, or to trouble certain persons with it, who have special reasons for keeping certain matters a secret from his highness the prince. I beg leave, therefore, to address myself to his excellency, Count Malikowsky, as the most suitable person for an arrangement, with the request that immediately fifty thousand roubles in silver be paid me by his bankers in town; if not, I shall see myself compelled to present my request in person to his highness the prince.
"In the meanwhile (which I beg to limit to eight days from to-day) I remain, etc., etc., etc.,
"Director Caspar Schmenckel, from Vienna.
"P.S.--If you should prefer to negotiate directly with me, I may be found every evening after 7 o'clock in the 'Dismal Hole,' Gertrude street. No. 15. The same."
"Well, what do you say, Alexandrina?" snarled the count, letting his eye-glass drop, and putting the letter back in his pocket.
"That the whole thing is a poor invention of yours."
"_Comment?_" exclaimed the count, with an astonishment which was not affected in this case.