"Is your husband dead, then?" asked Etta in a low voice, with a strange haste.

"No; he is only in Siberia. You have perhaps heard of his misfortune--Count Stepan Lanovitch."

Etta nodded her head with the deepest sympathy.

"I feel for you, countess," she said. "And yet you are so brave--and mademoiselle," she said, turning to Catrina. "I hope we shall see more of each other in Tver."

Catrina bowed jerkily and made no reply. Etta glanced at her sharply.

Perhaps she saw more than Catrina knew.

"I suppose," she said to the countess, with that inclusive manner which spreads the conversation out, "that Paul and Mlle. de Lanovitch were playmates?"

The reply lay with either of the ladies, but Catrina turned away.

"Yes," answered the countess; "but Catrina is only twenty-four--ten years younger than Paul."

"Indeed!" with a faint, cutting surprise.

Indeed Etta looked younger than Catrina. On a l'age de son coeur, and if the heart be worn it transmits its weariness to the face, where such signs are ascribed to years. So the little stab was justified by Catrina's appearance.

While the party assembled were thus exchanging social amenities, a past master in such commerce joined them in the person of Claude de Chauxville.

He smiled his mechanical, heartless smile upon them all, but when he bowed over Etta's hand his face was grave. He expressed no surprise at seeing Paul and Etta, though his manner betokened that emotion. There was no sign of this meeting having been a prearranged matter, brought about by himself through the easy and innocent instrumentality of the countess.

"And you are going to Tver, no doubt?" he said almost at once to Etta.

"Yes," answered that lady, with a momentary hunted look in her eyes. It is strange how an obscure geographical name may force its way into our lives, never to be forgotten. Queen Mary of England struck a note of the human octave when she protested that the word "Calais" was graven on her heart. It seemed to Etta that "Tver" was written large wheresoever she turned, for the conscience looks through a glass and sees whatever may be written thereon overspreading every prospect.

"The prince," continued De Chauxville, turning to Paul, "is a great sportsman, I am told--a mighty hunter. I wonder why Englishmen always want to kill something."

Paul smiled, without making an immediate answer. He was not the man to be led into the danger of repartee by such as De Chauxville.

"We have a few bears left," he said.

"You are fortunate," protested De Chauxville. "I shot one when I was younger. I was immensely afraid, and so was the bear. I have a great desire to try again."

Etta glanced at Paul, who returned De Chauxville's bland gaze with all the imperturbability of a prince.

The countess's cackling voice broke in at this juncture, as perhaps De Chauxville had intended it to do.

"Then why not come and shoot ours?" she said. "We have quite a number of them in the forests at Thors."

"Ah, Mme. la Comtesse," he answered, with outspread, deprecatory hands, "but that would be taking too great an advantage of your hospitality and your well-known kindness."

He turned to Catrina, who received him with a half-concealed frown. The countess bridled and looked at her daughter with obvious maternal meaning, as one who was saying, "There--you bungled your prince, but I have procured you a baron."

"The abuse of hospitality is the last refuge of the needy," continued De Chauxville oracularly. "But my temptation is strong; shall I yield to it, mademoiselle?"

Catrina smiled unwillingly.

"I would rather leave it to your own conscience," she said. "But I fail to see the danger you anticipate."

"Then I accept, madame," said De Chauxville, with the engaging frankness which ever had a false ring in it.

If the whole affair had been prearranged in Claude de Chauxville's mind, it certainly succeeded more fully than is usually the case with human schemes. If, on the other hand, this invitation was the result of chance, Fortune had favored Claude de Chauxville beyond his deserts.

The little scene had played itself out before the eyes of Paul, who did not want it; of Etta, who desired it; and of Catrina, who did not exactly know what she wanted, with the precision of a stage-play carefully rehearsed.

Claude de Chauxville had unscrupulously made use of feminine vanity with all the skill that was his. A little glance toward Etta, as he accepted the invitation, conveyed to her the fact that she was the object of his clever little plot; that it was in order to be near her that he had forced the Countess Lanovitch to invite him to Thors; and Etta, with all her shrewdness, was promptly hoodwinked. Vanity is a handicap assigned to clever women by Fate, who handicaps us all without appeal. De Chauxville saw by a little flicker of the eyelids that he had not missed his mark. He had hit Etta where his knowledge of her told him she was unusually vulnerable. He had made one ally. The countess he looked upon with a wise contempt. She was easier game than Etta. Catrina he understood well enough. Her rugged simplicity had betrayed her secret to him before he had been five minutes in the room. Paul he despised as a man lacking finesse and esprit--a truly French form of contempt. For Frenchmen have yet to learn that such qualities have remarkably little to do with love.

Claude de Chauxville was one of those men--alas! too many--who owe their success in life almost entirely to some feminine influence or another.

Whenever he came into direct opposition to men it was his instinct to retire from the field. Behind Paul's back he despised him; before his face he cringed.

"Then, perhaps," he said, when the princess was engaged in the usual farewells with the countess, and Paul was moving toward the door--"then, perhaps, prince, we may meet again before the spring--if the countess intends her invitation to be taken seriously."

"Yes," answered Paul; "I often shoot at Thors."

"If you do not happen to come over, perhaps I may be allowed to call and pay my respects--or is the distance too great?"

"You can do it in an hour and a half with a quick horse, if the snow is good," answered Paul.

"Then I may make it au revoir?" enquired De Chauxville, holding out a frank hand.

"Au revoir," said Paul, "if you wish it."

And he turned to say good-by to Catrina.

As De Chauxville had arrived later than the other visitors, it was quite natural that he should remain after they had left, and it may be safely presumed that he took good care to pin the Countess Lanovitch down to her rash invitation.

"Why is that man coming to Tver?" said Paul, rather gruffly, when Etta and he were settled beneath the furs of the sleigh. "We do not want him there."

"I expect," replied Etta rather petulantly, "that we shall be so horribly dull that even M. de Chauxville will be a welcome alleviation."

Paul said nothing. He gave a little sign to the driver, and the horses leaped forward with a musical clash of their silver bells.

CHAPTER XXII

THE SPIDER AND THE FLY

It is to be feared that there is a lamentable lack of local color in the present narrative. Having safely arrived at Petersburg, we have nothing to tell of that romantic city--no hints at deep-laid plots, no prison, nor tales of jail-birds--tales with salt on them, bien entendu--the usual grain. We have hardly mentioned the Nevski Prospekt, which street by ancient right must needs figure in all Russian romance. We have instead been prating of drawing-rooms and mere interiors of houses, which to-day are the same all the world over. A Japanese fan is but a Japanese fan, whether it hang on the wall of a Canadian drawing-room or the matting of an Indian bungalow. An Afghan carpet is the same on any floor. It is the foot that treads the carpet which makes one to differ from another.

Whether it be in Petersburg or Pekin, it still must be the human being that lends the interest to the still life around it. A truce, therefore, to picturesque description--sour grapes to the present pen--of church and fort and river, with which the living persons of whom we tell have little or nothing to do.

Maggie was alone in the great drawing-room of the house at the end of the English Quay--alone and grave. Some people, be it noted, are gravest when alone, and they are wise, for the world has too much gravity for us to go about it with a long face, making matters worse. Let each of us be the centre of his own gravity. Maggie Delafield had, perhaps, that spark in the brain for which we have but an ugly word. We call it "pluck." And by it we are enabled to win a losing game--and, harder still, to lose a losing game--without much noise or plaint.