Page:Maud, Renée - One year at the Russian court 1904-1905.djvu/164

138 beside the Grand Duke and his companion at the tables when he overheard the Grand Duke remonstrate with La Baletta for not staking a certain winning horse, to which she replied: "Je l'aurais bien fait, monseigneur, si je possédais les coffres-forts de Votre Altesse."

Before the season for the Isles commenced, the quays at Petrograd were the favourite rendezvous, where one was sure to meet a number of friends, carriages being occupied for the most part by ladies wearing magnificent furs.

A party of about twenty of us used to meet every morning out skating—a very cosmopolitan lot composed of diplomats from all over Europe.

The daughters of Monsieur Mouravieff, then Minister for Foreign Affairs, and afterwards Russian Ambassador in Rome, where he died, used to join our party every day; Countess Berchthold came very often; also Mrs Napier, with her husband Colonel Napier, then Military Attaché to the British Embassy; and many others.

The skating rinks in Russia are very safe, as notwithstanding the great thickness of the ice they submerge large flat boats placed side by side up to a few inches below the water before it has frozen, so that if the ice breaks there is no danger of disappearing under the floes.

Nothing was more amusing once one had on one's skates than to let oneself be pushed