The Genius | Page 7

his attention; and his manner with women of station was unresentable. Nevertheless, the covert amusement in his voice and in the eyes that looked after his wife, set even Caroline's experienced teeth on edge. She talked with him on the prospects of the evening; and it was a theme so interesting to both of them that neither perceived the little figure, dressed in black velvet, that stole quietly down from the second floor and concealed himself on the landing behind the floral drapery that spread, star-fashion, from the statue of the goddess. An hour or two before Ivan, filled with a vague excitement, had bribed his old nurse to dress him in his best, and, having seen his mother and his aunt in their court-dress, he had been seized with the desire for more. After waiting in his room as long as he could, the boy had stolen down the staircase to a point whence he could see the progress of that great ball which was, in some mysterious way, to change the fortunes of his father's house, and, with them, the long loneliness of his own, dreamy days.
So he crouched there through the hours, well concealed, a figure unconsciously pathetic, his great, sad eyes--eyes begotten by his mother, and with all her own woe in their liquid depths--glowing brightly in the white, wistful, childish face; the suggestion of a smile on his straight, delicately chiselled mouth. He had been in his place barely ten minutes when the great doors opened to the first guests; and, during the hour that followed, they were scarcely shut. The opera was over. Fashionable Moscow, accustomed to live at night, swathed itself in furs, and, grumbling at the unwonted distance, had spun across the city, in open sleighs, to the distant Gregoriev palace.
Prince Michael, with his wife and his sister-in-law beside him, stood at the entrance to the gold drawing-room, welcoming the men and women who were announced in rapid succession: men and women whose names set Sophia's heart beating with memory. There were few, indeed, that any major-domo in Petersburg would not have shouted in his best voice. For all of them were members of the great Russian world: Apúkhtin and Mirski, Chipraznik, Smirnoff and the omnipresent Nikitenko--names that had been the last to fade into, the first to reappear from, the baleful night of Tátar rule. Not one of them all but had once known Sophia Blashkov intimately: none but greeted Madame Dravikine as a familiar acquaintance of to-day. But, for the first time since his wedding-day, Michael Gregoriev felt himself slighted for that woman he had so long despised. One and all, women and men alike, they slid by him as rapidly as decency would permit, nor cared to notice him again, though, from far corners and discreet retreating-places, they bestowed on him glances that ran the gamut from curiosity to open horror. Not so did Sophia fare. There was for her at least one hour when the immediate past was blotted out, and her heart warmed and thrilled again as it had in that long-past, joyous winter of her presentation.
By half an hour past midnight the rooms were crowded and there had settled over the company a hush: that peculiar stillness of expectancy that is destruction to the nerves of a host. In this special pause, however, lay something beyond the ordinary: a discomfort, a palpable uneasiness, that sheathed a subtle threat. Sophia, with her woman's instinct, was no quicker to perceive it than her husband. They, with Countess Caroline and every other woman in the rooms, put the same interpretation upon that significant lull. It spoke thus: "It is late, and he whom we were commanded to meet is not here. His Imperial Majesty's name forced us to this house. Now he has not come. Is the thing a trick? Michael Petrovitch Gregoriev, have you been capable of this? Dared you dream that such folly of deceit could really help you?"
Such was the unmistakable sentiment in the air when, at a quarter before one, the sisters met in a corner of the dining-room, and there passed between them a white-faced look. Then Madame Dravikine whispered:
"Sophie, what does it mean? Did Nicholas promise?"
The question was a mistake. Princess Gregoriev's lips went white, and she seemed to 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