The Genius | Page 8

speak with difficulty. "Caroline! Then you were not
assured by him? You as well as Michael have deceived me?"
Madame Dravikine flushed scarlet. "I have never discussed your affairs
with his Majesty," she returned, haughtily.
Sophia made no reply. Her face, if possible, grew a little more livid, her
eyes a trifle more piteous.
Caroline, in spite of her resentment, was touched with pity and with
fear; so that, presently, she burst out, impulsively: "Then you are ruined,
Sophie! Absolutely ruined!"

Suddenly, Princess Sophia's lips curled into a bitter smile. "I have been
ruined, as you call it, for eighteen years. This--this fiasco cannot make
it any worse!" And, before that expressionless tone, Madame Dravikine
was still.
A moment or two after this encounter, however, there came a sudden
stir. Beyond the dining-room, in the central hall, was a visible flutter of
excitement, and whispers sped rapidly through the rooms.
"He has really come!"
"The Czar is here!"
"After all, his Majesty has arrived."
"Where is he, then?"
"In his dressing-room. The royal sleigh is at the gate."
"Ah! Then we must remain!"
During the first seconds of the excitement, the Prince and Princess
Gregoriev came together near the door of the specially prepared
antechamber where his Majesty was to have his furs removed. Sophia's
cheeks were flushed, her eyes burning again; but the face of Michael
Petrovitch had become once more impenetrable. There were three
minutes of the strained attention. Then, from the door of the
antechamber, appeared a stately man, clad in a magnificent uniform, his
breast covered with medals and crosses. When they were still many feet
apart, a look passed between him and Prince Michael; and, in that look,
a new, undying enmity was born in Gregoriev's fierce soul. For the
guest from the Kremlin was not the Czar, but the Czar's most detested
envoy: the notorious Count Alderberg, Minister of the Imperial
Household. And his words to the host and hostess began with the
infuriating, formal: "I regret--"
Even through that moment of greeting, Princess Sophia scarcely
understood the full significance of this presence. Surely, if the Czar had

sent a proxy, it meant, at least, recognition. But as the Count carried his
cynical smile and gorgeous personality away in the direction of the
dining-room, and the poor lady turned to her husband, she was stricken
dumb at sight of the blind fury in his face. It was a look that she had
known before--too well. Yet never, perhaps, had such a concentrated
mixture of defeat, rage, and rebellion glared from those eyes or
straightened that heavy mouth. Now, indeed, she knew that they were
undone.
"Alderberg! Alderberg! By God and the devil, had I dreamed--" The
low-muttered words trailed off and were bitten into silence, while, by a
fierce contortion of the muscles, Michael straightened his face into a
semblance of calm. But the hands hanging at his sides were clinched
till the nails pierced his palms, and the veins started out, knotted and
purple, from his flesh.
For some moments the Princess stood irresolute, terrified lest her
guests should witness some part of this outbreak. Madame Dravikine
was first to emerge from the throng; and she came towards them,
dismay written in her face. She sent one glance at Michael; and then,
biting her lip, took her sister's hand in a gentle clasp.
"Ah! You, too, Katrelka!" whispered Sophia. "You, too, think it so
bad?"
Caroline shook her head sadly. "We are helpless, Sophie. A fit of
Nicholas' laziness has lost the world to you. Look!"
There was no time for response; for, at this moment, the Prince and
Princess Mirski came up with chill good-nights that were passively
accepted. They were immediately followed by the Osínin, who barely
looked towards Michael, but had the grace to murmur some excuse to
his wife. On their heels hastened the Apúkhtin, who played the few
seconds of farce with angry hauteur. Then, injury to insult, Alderberg
himself approached, having been in the rooms a bare five minutes. And,
as he disappeared into the royal alcove, the throng in the rooms began
to fly the house as from a spot plague-smitten.

At the instant of Alderberg's appearance in the hall, word of the
defection of the Czar had swept like wildfire through the rooms. The
Minister of the Imperial Household was nearly as unpopular among the
court circle of Moscow as he was among the peasant class; and nothing
could have been more unfortunate than the choice of him as the proxy
of his Majesty. Within five minutes, whispers were everywhere. The
drawing, dining, and dressing rooms were full of the rippling hiss of
talk which in every case preceded either frowns or angry laughter. Ivan,
from his hiding-place on the stairway, caught many phrases the
significance of which