Page:Maud, Renée - One year at the Russian court 1904-1905.djvu/183

Rh and wink at each other. She particularly addressed herself at the moment to a certain tall, young secretary of the Embassy, M. de C…, who confessed, laughing a trifle nervously, though really delighted, the unflattering suggestion concealed in this word—stupid—for no one doubted that she herself had been thus described; and she was rather sensitive, the dear Princess. He sauntered along gracefully to tell me what had passed, and we chuckled mischievously about it.

This evening, like all others, came at length to an end. Towards midnight every one dispersed like a long and elegant chaplet on the wide red-carpeted steps of the Embassy grand staircase.

At the foot of the last flight C…, all muffled up in his thick fur coat, his face half concealed behind his high turned-up collar, his eyes almost buried under his fur cap, found himself face to face with our Princess, still displaying her shoulders, which were always exposed to the fullest advantage.

"What are you carrying, C…? What a bundle!" she said in her loud drawling voice, displaying her pretty teeth and at the same time pointing to a voluminous parcel which the bearer was trying in vain to hide from the general gaze; and, so saying, she wriggled her back caressingly.

"C'est la tourte, c'est la tourte," he said with a feeble smile, and casting a significant glance at us as he disappeared.

In her subsequent conversations she never again referred to "tourtes."