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Updated: June 8, 2025
"I did not know the prince had so many enemies," said Steinmetz bluntly, whereat the marquise laughed suddenly, and apparently approached within bowing distance of apoplexy. In such wise the conversation went on during the dinner, which was a long one. Continually, repeatedly, Vassili approached the subject of Osterno and the daily life in that sequestered country.
He was pushing his arms into the sleeves of the old brown coat reaching to his heels, a garment which commanded as much love and respect in Osterno as ever would an angel's wing. Steinmetz opened the drawer of his bureau and laid a revolver on the table. "At all events," he said, "you may as well have the wherewithal to make a fight of it, if the worst comes to the worst."
The music always does stop, Miss Delafield; that is the worst of it. Thank you for dancing with an old buffer." He took her back to her chaperon, bowed in his old-world way to both ladies, and left them. "If I can help it, my very dear young friend," he said to himself as he crossed the room, looking for Paul, "you will not go to Osterno." He found Paul talking to two men.
"I wanted to speak to you," she said. "Ah!" Steinmetz answered. He was steering with infinite skill. In that room full of dancers no one touched Maggie's elbow or the swing of her dress, and she, who knew what such things meant, smiled as she noted it. "I have been asked to go and stay at Osterno," she said. "Shall I go?" "By whom?" "By Paul."
Paul and Steinmetz knew that the people around them in Osterno were somewhat like the dumb and driven beast. These peasants required overawing by a careful display of pomp an unrelaxed dignity. The line of demarcation between the noble and the peasant is so marked in the land of the Czar that it is difficult for Englishmen to realize or believe it.
The castle of Osterno is almost unique in the particular that one roof covers the ancient and the modern buildings. The vast reception-rooms, worthy of the name of state-rooms, adjoin the small stone-built apartments of the fortress which Paul's ancestors held against the Tartars.
When the Osterno party reached home that same evening the starosta was waiting to see Steinmetz. His news was such that Steinmetz sent for Paul, and the three men went together to the little room beyond the smoking-room in the old part of the castle. "Well?" said Paul, with the unconscious hauteur which made him a prince to these people. The starosta spread out his hands.
When he was in London with Etta Sydney Bamborough he did not, however, forget Osterno. He only longed for the time when he could take Etta freely into his confidence and engage her interest in the object of his ambition namely, to make the huge Osterno estate into that lump of leaven which might in time leaven the whole of the empire.
"If I agree to make a bolt for Petersburg to-morrow will you come?" retorted Paul. "No," answered the stout man. "I thought not. Your cynicism is only a matter of words, Steinmetz, and not of deeds. There is no question of either of us leaving Osterno. We must stay and fight it right out here." "That is so," answered Steinmetz, with the Teutonic stolidity of manner which sometimes came over him.
"I should like Mme. la Comtesse to invite the whole Osterno party to dine, and sleep, perhaps, if one may suggest it." Catrina wanted this too. She wanted to torture herself with the sight of Etta, beautiful, self-confident, carelessly cognizant of Paul's love.
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