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Updated: June 14, 2025
She placed her hands on Serge's shoulder, and with a deep sigh gave herself up. A profound silence reigned around. Suddenly a sound of approaching voices roused them, and at the same moment the heavy curtain which separated the room from the adjoining drawing-room was lifted. A shadow appeared on the threshold, as they were still in each other's arms.
He was faithful, unlikely as that may seem in a man of his kind; he never left his wife. He had hardly ever gone out without her; they were a couple of turtle-doves. They were laughed at. "The Princess has tied a string round Serge's foot," was said by some of Serge's former woman friends! It was something to be sure of her daughter's happiness.
Le Bride, with his inseparable friend, Du Tremblay, escorting Lady Harton, Serge's beautiful cousin, who had caused Micheline some anxiety on the day of her marriage, but whom she no longer feared; then the Prince and Princess Odescalchi, Venetian nobles, followed by Monsieur Clement Souverain, a young Belgian, starter of the Nice races, a great pigeon shot, and a mad leader of cotillons.
"He's all right," said Serge, and he backed away again, to march up to the horses, pat them, and then say a word or two to their driver, who was lying upon his back just in front, sleeping heavily and quite unconscious of Serge's presence. The latter took another turn or two up and down, thinking deeply the while.
He looked at the girl and then at Albine, as though he were comparing them one with the other. Albine pulled up one of her sleeves, as if to show that her arm was whiter than that of the pictured girl. Then they subsided into silence again, and gazed at the painting; and for a moment Albine's large blue eyes turned to Serge's grey ones, which were glowing.
With a bound, without going through the offices, without even taking off her bonnet and cloak, she went up to Serge's apartments. Without hesitating, she entered the smoking-room. Panine was there. Evidently he was expecting her. On seeing Madame Desvarennes he rose, with a smile: "One can see that you are at home," said he, ironically; "you come in without knocking."
He was born in the province of Posen, so violently seized on by Prussia, that octopus of Europe. Serge's father had been killed during the insurrection of 1848, and he, when a year old, was brought by his uncle, Thaddeus Panine, to France, and was educated at the College Rollin, where he had not acquired over much learning.
She placed her hands on Serge's shoulder, and with a deep sigh gave herself up. A profound silence reigned around. Suddenly a sound of approaching voices roused them, and at the same moment the heavy curtain which separated the room from the adjoining drawing-room was lifted. A shadow appeared on the threshold, as they were still in each other's arms.
"I dunno," said the old soldier, stooping down to caress the savage-looking beast in his customary way, which was to bang him heavily on both shoulders with his great, horny hand, the blows given being such as would have made an ordinary dog howl; but their effect upon Lupe was to make him half close his eyes, open his wide jaws, and loll out his long, lambent tongue, which curled up at the end; and, as it quivered in the fresh morning light, he rolled over upon his back and began patting playfully at Serge's hand.
Marcus said nothing, for he knew that the old soldier's words were meant to encourage him, and he thought so more than ever, as, free now from his heavy armour, he lay looking upward, listening to the faint hum of beetles and seeing the glint of the stars through the trees, while he thought of their journey and the disappointment he felt over Serge's words, while it seemed to him all a part of his thinking instead of a dream a confused dream when he fancied himself back at the old house seeking for Serge and finding the dog crouched down in the shed where the great stone cistern stood, and in the harvest time the grapes were trodden, those grown in their little vineyard and those from the neighbouring farms where there was no convenience of the kind.
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