At any rate, for a long time his life was despaired of, but he recovered and is as strong and sound as ever. Only, there is a strange sequel; or not so strange," reflectively, "since cases of its kind are common. The injury was on his head, as I remarked, and his mind became--"
"Affected, Monsieur?" said the Frenchman. "You mean this great n.o.ble of the steppe is no longer right, mentally?"
"He is one of the keenest satraps in Asia, Monsieur. His brain is as alert as ever, only he has suffered a complete loss of memory."
Sonia Turgeinov"s interest was of a distinctly artificial nature; she tapped on the floor with her foot; then abruptly arose. "Shan"t we go into the garden for our coffee?" she said. "It is close here."
They got up and walked out. As they did so they pa.s.sed a couple at one of the tables on the balcony and a slight exclamation fell from Sonia Turgeinov"s lips. For an instant she exhibited real interest, then hastening down the steps, she selected a place some distance aside. A great bunch of flowers was in the center of the table and she moved her chair behind them.
"You see some one you know, _gnadige_ Madam?" asked the observant Teuton.
"A great many people," she answered.
"There"s that American over there who asked for the Yankee piece of music," said the Frenchman, with eyes on the two people Sonia Turgeinov had started at sight of, a moment before. "_Mon Dieu!_ What charm! What beauty!"
"_Der Herr Amerikaner?_" blurted the surprised Berliner.
"No--_diable!_ His _belle_ companion!"
"Where?" said Sonia Turgeinov, well knowing. A face that her table companion regarded, she, too, saw beyond the flowers. The afternoon sunshine touched the golden hair of her she looked at; the violet eyes shone with delight upon bizarre details: of the scene--the waiters in blouses resembling street "white wings" in American cities, the coachmen outside, big as balloons in their quilted cloaks.
"_Der Herr Amerikaner_ has the pa.s.sionate eyes of an admirer, a devout lover," murmured the sentimental musician from Berlin.
"Or an American husband!" said Roscius from Odessa.
"Sometimes!" added the Frenchman cynically.
"I haf met him," observed the _Herr Musikaner_, "at the hotel.
We haf talked together, once or twice. He has been in South America--Argentine, _ich glaube_--and has made a fortune there. And madam, his wife, and he are making a grand tour of the world. Their wedding trip, I believe. _Sie kommt von einer der ersten Familien_--the Dalrymples. _Der Herr Direktor_ of the Russicher-Chinese bank told me.
He cashes the drafts--_Her Gott_--_nicht kleine!_"
These prosaic details the Frenchman, pictorially occupied, hardly, heard. "_Mon Dieu_! What a _chapeau_!" he sighed. "No wonder he looks enchanted at that wonderful creation of the Rue de la Paix."
"He seems quite an exception to some husbands in that respect!" remarked the Berliner in deep gutturals.
Sonia Turgeinov lighted a cigarette and blew the smoke at the flowers.
There was a resentful cynicism in the act; she leaned back with greater abandon in her chair. "After all, the unities have been observed," she said with an odd laugh.
"What unities?" asked Roscius, becoming keen as a young hound on the scent, at the sound of the trite phrase.
"Oh, I was thinking of a play." Stretching more comfortably. Suddenly her cigarette waved; behind the flowers, her eyes dilated. Prince Boris Strogareff was coming down the steps; he pa.s.sed the American couple they had been talking about and looked at them. A light of involuntary admiration shone from his gaze, but there was no recognition in it--only the instinctive tribute that a man of the world and a gallant Russian is ever p.r.o.ne to pay at the sight of an unusually charming member of the other s.e.x. Then, once more impa.s.sive--a striking handsome figure--he moved leisurely down and out of the gardens. The couple, engrossed at the time in a conversation of some intimate nature or in each other, had not even seen or noticed the august n.o.bleman.
Sonia Turgeinov drew harder on the cigarette; a laugh welled from her throat. "Oh, I wouldn"t have missed it for worlds!" she said.
Young Roscius with the Tartar eyes stared at her. She threw away the smoking cylinder.
"I"m off!"
"Why--"
"Has not the curtain descended?" enigmatically.
"I don"t see any curtain," said the Frenchman.
"No? But it"s there." At the gate, however, once more she paused--to listen, to laugh.
"_Was jetzt_?" asked the mystified Berliner.
She only shrugged.
The orchestra, having played a few conventional selections after _Dixie_, had now plunged into _Marching through Georgia_.
As Sonia Turgeinov disappeared through the gate, the golden head surmounted by the "wonderful _chapeau_", bent toward the clean-cut, strong-looking face of the young man on the other side of the small table.
"It"s awfully extravagant of you, Harry,--twenty roubles, a tip for those musicians. But it makes it seem like home, doesn"t it?"
"Yes, darling," he answered.
THE END