'We will move about a little while,' she said. 'Let us talk of Wanda, _mon beau_ cousin; since you can think of no one else. And so you are really going to Russia?'
'It will be a great sacrifice to her; any other woman would be in paradise in St. Petersburg, but she will be wretched.'
'I hope not; if I thought so I would not go.'
'You cannot but go now; you have made your choice. You will be happy enough. You will play again enormously, and Wanda has so much money that if you lose millions it will not ruin her.'
'I shall certainly not play with my wife's money. I have never played since my marriage.'
'For all that you will play in St. Petersburg. It is in the air. A saint could not help doing it, and you are not a saint by nature, though you have become one since marriage. But you know conversions by marriage do not last. They are like compulsory confessions. They mean nothing.'
'You are very malicious to-night, madame,' said Sabran, absently; he was in no mood for banter, and was disinclined to take up her challenge.
'Call me at least _cousinette_,' said Mdme. Olga; 'we are cousins, you know, thanks to Wanda. Oh! she will be very unhappy in St. Petersburg; she will not amuse herself, she never does. She is incapable of a flirtation; she never touches a card. When she dances it is only because she must, and then it is only a quadrille or a contre-dance. She always reminds me of Marie Thérèse's "In our position nothing is a trifle." You remember the Empress's letters to Versailles?'
Sabran was very much angered, but he was afraid to express his anger lest it should seem to make him absurd.
'Madame,' he said, with ill-repressed irritation, 'I know you speak only in jest, but I must take the liberty to tell you----however bourgeois it appear----that I do not allow a jest even from you upon my wife. Anything she does is perfect in my sight, and if she be imbued with the old traditions of gentle blood, too many ladies desert them in these days for me not to be grateful to her for her loyalty.'
She listened, with her bright black eyes fixed on him; then she leaned a little more closely on his arm.
'Do you know that you said that very well? Most men are ridiculous when they are in love with their wives, but it becomes you, Wanda is perfect, we all know that; you are not alone in thinking so. Ask Egon!'