Boris Lensky Part 21

"They are closing," said Nita, and they turned to the entrance.

"A true success, a great success," repeated Sophie to her friend as they went out. "Are you not a little glad, you pale sphinx?"

"Certainly," replied Nita, "certainly I am glad; but I cannot understand it. I would like to give myself a treat after all this past anxiety. Suppose we make an excursion to some of the Paris suburbs. Are you of the party, Monsieur Nikolas?"

And Nikolai's head swam with happiness.

XX.

"Adieu, Nikolai! Adieu, Mascha! Thank you many times. I have enjoyed myself wonderfully, splendidly! Good-night."

It is Sonia's voice on the steps of the house in the Avenue Murillo.

She had gone to the theatre with Nikolai and his sister. A month has pa.s.sed since the opening of the Salon, the whole wonderful month of May.

On the stair landing stands Nita, who, on account of great weariness, had refused to go with them--a lamp in her hand. Nikolai sees her white face, surrounded with light, over an abyss of blackness. "Good-night, Fraulein," calls he. "Good-night," repeats a hoa.r.s.e, weary little voice--Mascha's.

Then brother and sister depart, and Sonia hurries up the stairs.

"Did you enjoy yourself?" asks Nita, in her sympathetic, motherly way, while she embraces her friend.

"Splendidly; it was charming," says Sonia, enthusiastically.

"What was the play?"

Sonia is silent a moment, confusedly. "'_Les deux Orphelines_,'"

murmured she, hesitatingly, ponderingly. Then she corrects herself.

"No, no; how stupid I am! '_Les Pilules du Diable_.'"

And Nita strokes her flushed cheeks laughingly, and kisses her on her eyes. "How pretty you are; you grow prettier every day," she whispers to her.

"Nikolai said that to me to-day also," says Sonia, proudly, and blushes deeply.

"So! And did he not say something more significant?" laughs Nita.

"What should he say?" stammers Sonia. "I do not know."

"What droll people you two are!" says Nita, shaking her head. "To think that this moonlight-twilight has lasted since December. Pardon me, Sonia, but Nikolai is a riddle to me. How can one be so nice, so clever, and at the same time so slow and awkward? How can one need so long a time to bring something from the heart to the lips?"

"How do you know what he has in his heart?" replies Sonia, with a frown, but with only half-repressed joy in her voice. "And now, tell me, have you nothing for me to eat? I am fearfully hungry."

"I was prepared for that; come in our cosey corner."

The cosey corner is a little three-cornered room off of the drawing-room. A piano, a chair almost breaking under its load of music, a single sofa, a large arm-chair, and a little j.a.panese table, all grouped about a Parisian fire-place, form the furniture.

On the miniature table stands a little repast prepared--a dish of strawberries, sandwiches, little cakes, and, amongst all these delicacies, a sensible silver tea-pot.

"Ah, how nice you are!" says Sonia, pleased. "A mother could not care for me better; I cannot bear to think how horrible it was before I was with you! I live as if in Paradise with you!"

"Did poor little Mascha become at all gayer in the course of the evening?" asked Nita, as she poured tea for her friend.

"No; I am sorry for the child. She looks badly, pale, her face so lengthened and aged. I do not understand how she can take the affair so to heart. She scarcely knew Barenburg. His wedding must be soon."

"Poor midget!" murmurs Nita.

"Nikolai is very anxious about her," goes on Sonia. "It is touching to see her with him. At every funny part of the piece his eyes rested on her face to see if she would laugh, but she never did."

Nita hands her friend a letter. "From Berlin; it is your father's writing," says she.

Sonia opens it. "Yes, from papa. He is coming here in a day or two; he may be here tomorrow."

"And then you will be untrue to me," says Nita, smilingly. "Have you finished your supper? Do you not wish to retire?"

"No, no; I am not sleepy, and it is so nice to talk," replies Sonia.

"Come out on the terrace for a little."

Silently Nita follows. The heavens are cloudless. It is bright moonlight.

"Only think whom I saw in the theatre this evening," begins Sonia. "As you do not know the person, my communication will, alas! lack the impressive effect."

"Well?"

"The most singular woman--a certain Njikitjin."

"Marie Petrovna Njikitjin?" says Nita, who until then has been dreamily looking over the terrace railing. "Is she in Paris?"

"Yes. Do you know her?"

"A little," murmurs Nita.

"I know her well," sighs Sonia.

"How so?" asks Nita shortly, quite cuttingly.

"Papa left me with her before he left Paris."

"That is incredible," says Nita, shocked. "He certainly must know--"

She hesitates.

"Naturally, I also wondered at this choice of a protector," says Sonia, evenly.

"At first it was all very well; she only seemed a little peculiar and very untidy. She pa.s.sed the whole morning in a wrapper, nibbling now at _pate de foie gras_, now at bonbons. In the afternoon she slept, and in the evening she by turns wrote letters and played the piano, especially Beethoven's sonatas. But at the full moon she became terribly abnormal.

The whole night long she rushed here and there, wringing her hands, threw herself on my bed, demanded promises of friends.h.i.+p from me, which she returned with the most fiery kisses, and finally--you will not believe it, Nita, and you are the first to whom I tell it, but I still remember the petrified horror which seized me at that time--she confessed to me, minutely, it was in vain to wish to restrain her, her love affair with Lensky!"

"Shameless woman!" murmured Nita, angrily.