My husband was talking to someone at the other end of the drawing room.

“So you will go, won’t you, Mary?” said the Princess.

“We meant to start for the country the day after tomorrow,” I answered undecidedly, glancing at my husband. Our eyes met, and he turned away at once.

“I must persuade him to stay,” she said, “and then we can go on Saturday and turn all heads. All right?”

“It would upset our plans; and we have packed,” I answered, beginning to give way.

“She had better go this evening and make her curtsey to the Prince,” my husband called out from the other end of the room; and he spoke in a tone of suppressed irritation which I had never heard from him before.

“I declare he’s jealous, for the first time in his life,” said the lady, laughing. “But it’s not for the sake of the Prince I urge it, Sergéy Mikháylych, but for all our sakes. The Countess was so anxious to have her.”