All this had excited little or no attention among the bystanders.
How should it? An opera ball teems with such episodes. Two young
people, one in pursuit of the other--a signal--a handy _fiaker, et
voilá_! Who cares? Everyone is busy with his own affairs, his own
little bits of adventure and intrigue.
Surely that grey domino over there, standing under one of the fine
electric light chandeliers, could have no interest in the unknown
odalisque and her ardent swain, for he made not the slightest attempt
at pursuit; yet his eyes followed the fast disappearing _fiaker_, as
long as it was recognisable amidst the crowd of vehicles and mummers.
A young man he was; evidently not anxious to remain incognito, for he
had thrown back the hood of his domino, and held the mask in his hand.
Yet though he thus, as it were, courted recognition, he visibly
started as a soft musical voice, with the faintest vestige of foreign
intonation, addressed him merrily.
“Why so moody, M. Volenski? Have Strauss’ waltzes tired out your
spirits, or has your donna eloped with a hated rival?”
The young man had pulled himself together, and forced his eyes and
thoughts to wander away from the _fiaker_, which now appeared as a
mere speck, to the graceful figure in front of him, who owned that
musical voice and had called him by his name.
“Madame Demidoff!” he said, evidently not pleasantly surprised.
“Herself,” she replied laughingly; “do not assume an astonishment, so
badly justified. I am not a Viennese _grande dame_, and coming to an
opera ball is not the most unpardonable of my eccentricities.”
“Yes! but alone?”
“Not alone,” she rejoined, still merry, “since you are here to protect
me from my worst perils, and lend me a helping hand in the most dire
difficulties.”
“Allow me to start on these most enviable functions by finding your
carriage for you,” he said, a trifle absently.
She bit her lip, and tried a laugh, but this time there was a
_soupçon_ of harshness in the soft foreign notes.
“Ah, Iván, how you must reckon on my indulgence, that you venture so
unguardedly on so ungallant a speech!”
“Was it ungallant?”
“Come, what would be your judgment on a young man, one of our
_jeunesse dorée_, who, meeting a lady at the opera ball, offers,
after the first two minutes, to find her carriage for her.”
“I should deem it an unpardonable sin, and punishable by some nameless
tortures, if that lady happened to be Madame Demidoff,” he said,
striving to make banal speeches to hide his evident desire for
immediate retreat.
She looked at him keenly for a minute, then sighed a quick, impatient
little sigh.
“Well, call my carriage, Iván; I will not keep you, you evidently
have some pressing engagement.”
“The Cardinal----” he began clumsily.
“Ah! his Eminence requires your attention at so late an hour?” she
said, still a little bitterly.
“His Eminence is leaving Vienna to-morrow, and there are still many
letters to answer. I shall probably write most of the night through.”
She appeared content with this explanation, and while Volenski gave
directions to one of the gorgeous attendants stationed outside the
house to call Madame Demidoff’s carriage, she resumed the conversation
in more matter-of-fact tones.
“His Eminence will be glad of a holiday after the trying diplomatic
business of the past few weeks; and you, M. Volenski, I feel sure,
have also earned a few days’ repose.”
“The Cardinal certainly has given me two or three weeks’ respite,
while he himself goes to the Tyrol for the benefit of his health.”
“And after that?”
“We meet at Petersburg, where his Eminence has an important memorial
to submit to his Majesty the Tsar.”
“Ah, we shall meet at Petersburg soon then?”
“You yourself, madame----?”
“Yes, I shall probably be there before you both arrive, and thus have
the honour of welcoming his Eminence in person. But here is my
carriage. It is ‘au revoir,’ then, M. Volenski, not ‘adieu,’ luckily
for you,” she added once more coquettishly, “for had it been a longer
parting I should have found it hard to forgive your not even calling
to leave a bit of pasteboard with my _concierge_.”
He had given her his arm, and was leading her down the wide stone
stairs, trying all the while not to appear relieved that the interview
was at last over, and his fair companion on the way to leaving him
alone with his anxieties and agitation.
“Good-night, Iván,” she said, after he had helped her into her
carriage, and wrapped her furs round her.
Long after her coachman had started she leant her head out of the
window, and watched him, as long as she could distinguish his grey
domino among the crowd; there was a wistful look on her face, also a
frown, perhaps of self-contempt. Then, when the carriage had left the
opera house, with all its gaiety and tumult, behind, and she no longer
could see Iván Volenski’s figure at the foot of the wide stone
stairs, she seemed to dismiss with an impatient sigh and shrug any
little touch of sentiment that may have lurked in her thoughts, and it
was an impassive, slightly irritable _grande dame_ who alighted out of
the little elegant _coupé_, under the portico of one of the finest
houses on the Kolowrátring.
“Send Eugen to me in my boudoir at once,” she said to the footman, who
preceded her upstairs. “If he is from home, one of you sit up till he
comes in; if he is asleep, he must be wakened forthwith.”
She seemed too agitated to sit down, though the arm-chairs in her
luxurious boudoir stood most invitingly by. She was pacing up and down
the room, listening for every footstep. Far from her was all touch of
sentiment, all recollection of the figure in the grey domino whom she
had called Iván, and who seemed all but too eager to be rid of her.
What she had seen to-night, not half an hour ago, had mystified her
beyond expression. She, (and of this she felt convinced), was the only
person, with the exception of old Count Lavrovski, and one
confidential valet, who, in this city, knew that in the guise of that
black domino was the heir to the Russian throne.
He had been spoken to by a forward masque, disguised as an odalisque;
that was neither surprising nor unusual at carnival time, when every
description of forwardness is not only permissible, but encouraged.
The Tsarevitch, with youthful impetuosity, had followed, forgetting
his rank and the dangers that always surround his position, and both
he and the odalisque had disappeared in a _fiaker_, which Madame
Demidoff felt convinced had been there ready waiting for them, and had
driven off, without apparently any directions being given to the
coachman.
“Come in,” she said, much relieved, as a discreet footstep, and a rap
at the door caught her ear, still on the alert. She took up a
cigarette from a little case that lay close to her hand; she felt it
would calm her nerves, and steady her voice.
A man entered--a flat-nosed, high cheek-boned Russian of the lower
classes, whose low forehead betokened an absence of what is usually
called intellectuality, but whose piercing, cold, grey eyes, deeply
sunk between the thinnest of lids, spoke of cunning and of alacrity. A
useful man, no doubt. Madame Demidoff seemed more calm the moment she
spoke to him.
“Eugen,” she said, “listen to me, for something very mysterious has
happened at the opera ball to-night, and there is some work you must
do for me now, at once, and also during the course of to-morrow.
“The Tsarevitch went to the opera ball to-night disguised as a black
domino.… Yes! he was in Vienna.… Incognito.… No one knew it.… The
whole thing was foolish in the extreme, and I am beginning to fear
some foul agency must have been at work. He was decoyed from his
opera-box by a woman dressed as an odalisque… in red and gold, I
think… no matter the description.… There were hundreds in that guise
at the opera. Nicholas Alexandrovitch followed her; a _fiaker_ was
waiting for them; he jumped in, and it drove off at great rapidity
towards the old town.”
“Yes, _barina_?”
For she had paused a moment to collect her thoughts before giving him
her final directions.
“You must find out for me first whether the Tsarevitch has returned to
his hotel, and if not, what steps Count Lavrovski is taking to
discover the key to the mystery. You must dog the old man’s every
footstep, and if he goes to the police, or sends any telegraphic
message across to Petersburg, you must apprise me of it at once.
Moreover, both outside the opera house, at the _fiaker_ stations, and
at the various railways, you must glean what scraps of information you
can relating to the flying domino and odalisque, or the _fiaker_ that
drove them. I leave by the express for Petersburg to-morrow at
midnight; you must come and tell me what you have learnt in the early
part of the evening.”
She dismissed him now, and when once more alone she sat and thought
over the occurrences of to-night. Then it was that ever and anon the
wistful look--almost of yearning, that rendered her aristocratic face
so inexpressibly sweet and tender--crept into her eyes; but when it
came, the impatient little sigh and self-contemptuous frown invariably
accompanied it. Surely this worldly woman, this elegant _grande dame_,
would not allow even the faintest vestige of sentiment to creep up
among her recollections of the gay carnival ball, more especially as
that sentiment was evidently directed towards one who----
“Ah me!” Madame Demidoff sighed again, threw away her cigarette, and
rang for her maid, all with the idea of putting an end to any more
thinking that night.