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But there were others in those rooms who had not his insight. And it came finally to the remembrance of Madame Dravikine, in the midst of a most amusing tête-
He had gauged the real depth of de Windt's conceit, and knew him to be, at bottom, both sincere and just in his estimates of men and things. "I ought to be at home there, at least," he observed, quietly. "Caroline Ivanovna Madame Dravikine is my aunt." "St. Serge!
Having with some little self-control waved aside the unusual rebuff of Sophia's first words, Madame Dravikine listened to the last with a smile, a trifle self-conscious; and in spite of her sister's look a stare that suggested coldness, the expression remained with her as she answered: "Yes, at last you are safe, dear.
And since it was unquestionably madame who ruled the family, young Mademoiselle Nathalie, despite her remarkable eyes, her curling black hair and her rose-leaf skin, came to spend her babyhood in the care of the Dravikine serfs; until at the age of six she talked like a kitchen-maid, and had the manners of a stable-boy or a Grand-Duke.
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.
Nor could she find in her guide and mentor that mother, whom she so little knew, either comfort or refuge in her unhappiness. Madame Dravikine, indeed, was disgusted and disappointed. The tale of Ivan's mad devotion and of her daughter's imprudence, had spread through the city, losing nothing in the telling. And Nathalie's open stubbornness and rebellion confirmed it only too clearly.
For some moments the Princess stood irresolute, terrified lest her guests should witness some part of this outbreak. Madame Dravikine was first to emerge from the throng; and she came towards them, dismay written in her face. She sent one glance at Michael; and then, biting her lip, took her sister's hand in a gentle clasp. "Ah! You, too, Katrelka!" whispered Sophia. "You, too, think it so bad?"
Madame Dravikine, it appeared, had learned the whole tale of yesterday's walk from the dragoness-serf; and her nephew had to endure a short and sarcastic sermon upon the nature of etiquette for young girls which finally sent him from the house, white-faced and furious.
Her expression might have been better; but she'll improve with practice. There may be other fools in the world, you know, who haven't realized what a crime it is not to have ten irreproachably noble grandfathers. "She Mademoiselle Dravikine asked my pardon for her shocking behavior of the morning. She had made a great mistake, she said.
These occupations, conceived during long, wakeful nights in the dormitory of the Corps, at Moscow, had seemed to him, at that time, details of a nearly perfect life. But Lieutenant Gregoriev of the imperial guard, man-about-town and nephew of Countess Dravikine, could afford to laugh at his childish ideas of a "manly" existence.
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