"Very good. I will see him directly."

"It would be far better to rather avoid any interview with him."

"Why, pray? I wish to know what means you have employed to obtain from Monsieur Paul Meyrin so ready and blind a submission."

"What does that matter to you?"

"It matters this, that if Monsieur Meyrin is the man I take him for, he will not leave before having heard me."

"You must be responsible then for what may happen."

"Why, what will happen?"

"You will see."

"Come, mother, don"t let us talk in enigmas. What are you imagining? By what right do you interfere in what concerns me alone?"

"What I imagine, or rather what I am certain of, I will not say, out of respect to you. My interference is a fulfillment of my duty. After rearing you with a view to create for you a future according to my ambition, after having made a princess of you, I will not suffer you to ruin everything on account of a ridiculous caprice."

Lise Olsdorf could not master a thrill of anger and pain. The glitter in her great eyes told her mother that she had overshot the mark. A ridiculous caprice, this ungovernable pa.s.sion that had thrown her into Paul Meyrin"s arms!

She recovered herself somewhat, however, and replied bitterly:

"Yes, that is true. You have made a princess of me, and, as you say--to satisfy your ambition. You would have acted more wisely if you had made me a happy woman. You forced me to marry a man who did not love me, and whom I did not and could not love. Is it my fault if the blood of an artiste runs in my veins?"

"Well--of an artiste?" said Mme. Podoi, haughtily.

"Bah! As if these tastes and these aspirations were not derived from yourself!"

The ex-comedienne at these words started indignantly.

The past that she had long since forgotten and wished never to recall, her daughter reminded her of. How came she to know so much? Did she not know still more?

Possessed by this thought, she said, more gently:

"It is no question of tastes or aspirations but of your honor and that of the prince, and you repay poorly my care for your peace of mind in trying to offend me. It would be better, I think, for both of us not to prolong the interview. I have spoken to you and to Monsieur Paul Meyrin, as it was my duty to speak. His going will seem quite natural when he has excused it as I have advised him to do. He will write to the prince, as I have suggested, and at least any scandal will be avoided. The day will come when you will thank me."

Lise"s only reply to these last words was an ironical smile. As soon as her mother was gone, she quickly finished her toilet and went down to the dining-room, where most of the guests were already gathered.

Paul Meyrin entered the room a few moments later. He was so pale and so evidently preoccupied that several persons asked him if he were not unwell.

"No," he replied, "but I have had bad news from Paris, and must leave Pampeln to-day."

At that moment the princess signed to him to come to her, and when he had done so she said, in a low, rapid voice:

"I know what has pa.s.sed between my mother and you. I will wait for you in my room after luncheon."

Mme. Podoi, who had only come into the room leaning on the general"s arm at that moment, did not notice what was going on. Besides, she had made up her mind not to interfere between her daughter and the painter, to avoid an outburst. M. Paul Meyrin was going away; that was the main thing in her eyes.

They sat down to table, but Lise Olsdorf soon excused herself from keeping her guests company any longer. An hour later, while the visitors to Pampeln were making for their rooms or strolling over the park, Paul, going by a roundabout way familiar to him through the princ.i.p.al rooms of the chateau, stole into the princess"s private apartments.

She was there impatiently and feverishly awaiting him.

"You don"t love me any longer, then," she cried, springing to him, "as you have submitted so easily to my mother"s orders."

"Your mother has not told you, has she, what she threatened me with if I did not go?" he asked, rea.s.suring his mistress with a thousand kisses.

"No, but I believe she would do anything to gain her end."

"She told me simply that if I did not leave Pampeln to-day, her husband would challenge me to a duel."

"Impossible."

"That is the fact, and the thing has been cunningly thought out, for it is certain that if I were to fight the general I could not remain here afterward."

"But she would have to supply my step-father with some reason for a challenge."

"Oh, your mother is clever enough to find a reason."

"And he would obey her blindly, at the risk of being run through the body. He is simpleton enough for that. I know the influence his wife has over him."

"You see, I must needs go--not for my own sake, but for yours."

The princess grew somber and fierce. Reclining on a couch, she fixed her flashing eyes on her lover kneeling before her.

"So be it then," she said, after a moment of silence, winding her arms about Paul"s neck. "So be it--go; but soon to meet again. It is my mother herself who will be to blame for it."

"Why, what do you mean?" asked the painter, pressing Lise to his heart.

"I mean that before winter is upon us I shall be in Paris. She sends you away, does she--she separates us? Well, I will go to you."

The artist gave a cry of joy; and mad, intoxicated, careless of danger, they forgot all else but their love and their dreams of the future.

That evening Paul Meyrin left Pampeln, after writing to the prince in the sense agreed on with Mme. Podoi. At the same time he made his excuses for being unable to await the prince"s return, thank him in person for his hospitality, and take formal leave of him.

It was the middle of September, and the stay in Courland, according to the ordinary custom, would last until the early part of October. Lise had mapped out her course, and was so completely master of herself that her mother soon came to think that she had exaggerated the danger, and that her daughter had almost forgotten Paul Meyrin.

Two months later she saw her mistake, when the prince himself told her in St. Petersburg that his wife was going to Paris for medical advice as to the state of her health, about which she was uneasy.

At this quite unlooked-for news the general"s wife had almost betrayed the anger and indignation she felt. Happily she restrained herself, and hurried to her daughter.

She found her preparing for the departure. At the first glance to the trunks that the maids were packing, she could see the absence was meant to be a long one.

"So," she said, after leading her daughter to another room, "you are going to Paris? Why did you say nothing to me of this journey?"

"I do not start until to-morrow. I was coming to say good-bye this evening."

"And this journey is taken on account of your health?"