The Emperors Candlesticks | Page 3

after the first two minutes, to find her carriage for her."
"I should deem it to be an unpardonable sin, and punishable by some nameless tortures, if that lady happens to be Madam Demidoff," he said, striving to make banal speeches to hide his evident desire for immediate retreat.
She looked at his keenly for a minute, then sighed a quick, impatient little sigh.
"Well, call my carriage, Ivàn; I will not keep you, you obviously have some pressing engagement."
"The Cardinal -" he began clumsily.
"Ah! his Eminence requires your attention at so late an hour?" she said, still a little bitterly.
"His Eminence is leaving Vienna to-morrow and there are still many letters to answer. I shall probably be writing most of the night through."
She appeared content with this explanation, and while Volenski gave directions to one of the gorgeous attendants stationed outside the house to call Madam Demidoff's carriage, she resumed the conversation in a more matter-of-fact tone.
"His Eminence will be glad of a holiday after the trying diplomatic business of the past few weeks; and you, M. Volenski, I feel sure have also earned a few days repose.
"The Cardinal certainly has given me two or three weeks' respite, while he himself goes to Tyrol for the benefit of his health."
"And after that?"
"We meet at Petersburg, where his Eminence has an important memorial to submit to his Majesty the Tsar."
"You yourself, madame -"
"Yes, I shall probably be there before you both arrive, and thus have the honour of welcoming his Eminence in person. But here is my carriage. It is 'au revior,' then, M. Volenski, not 'adieu,' luckily for you," she added once more coquettishly, "for had it been a longer parting I should have found it hard to forgive your not even calling to leave a bit of pasteboard with my concierge."
He had given her his arm, and was leading her down the wide stone stairs, trying all the while not to appear relieved that the interview was at last over, and his faro companion on the way to leaving him alone with his anxieties and agitation.
"Good-night, Ivàn," she said, after her had helped her into her carriage, and wrapped her furs round her.
Long after her coachman had started she leant her head out of the window, and watched him, as long as she could distinguish his grey domino among the crowd; there was a wistful look on her face, also a frown, perhaps of self contempt. Then, when the carriage had left the opera house, with all its gaiety and tumult, behind, and she no longer could see Ivàn Volenski's figure at the foot of the wide stone stairs, she seemed to dismiss with an impatient sigh and a shrug any little touch of sentiment that may have lurked in her thoughts, and it was an impassive, slightly irritable grande dame who alighted out of the little elegant coupé, under the portico of one of the finest houses on the Kolowràtring.
"Send Eugen to me in my boudoir at once," she said to the footmen, who preceded her upstairs. "If he is from home, one of you sit up till he comes in; if he is asleep, he must be wakened forthwith."
She seemed too agitated to sit down, though the arm-chairs in her luxurious boudoir stood most invitingly by. She was pacing up and down the room, listening for every footstep. Far from her was all touch of sentiment, all recollection of the figure in the grey domino whom she had called Ivàn, and who seemed all but too eager to be rid of her.
What she had seen to-night, not half hour ago, had mystified her beyond expression. She (and of this she felt convinced), was the only person, with the exception of old Count Lavrovski, and the one confidential valet, who, in this city, knew that in the guise of that black domino was the heir to the Russian throne.
He had been spoken to by a forward masque, disguised as an odalisque; that was neither surprising nor unusual at carnival time, when every description of forwardness is not only permissible, but encouraged. The Tsarevitch, with youthful impetuosity, had followed, forgetting his rank and the dangers that always surround his position, and both he and the odalisque had disappeared into a faiker, which Madame Demidoff felt convinced had been there ready waiting for them, and driven off, without apparently any directions being given to the coachman.
"Come in,! she said, much relieved, as a discreet footstep, and a rap at the door caught her ear, still on the alert. She took up a cigarette from a little case that lay close to her hand; she felt it would calm her nerves, and steady her voice.
A man entered - flat-nosed, high cheek-boned Russian of the lower classes, whose low forehead betokened an absence of