Page:Rowland--The closing net.djvu/352

330 mantic interest and the fact that Ivan himself was so well known and well liked round the town. The case was so evidently one of suicide that not even the most enterprising reporter tried to make a "mystery case" of it. Léontine came to see me several times. Then she went away, and I learned afterward that she had gone to Berck to look after Ivan's charity for the tuberculous children. Ivan was not quite square with Léontine; there was a lot more of the mother in her than of the wanton.

I had been laid up about a fortnight when my nurse came in one day, with a grin, to tell me that the Countess Rosalie had called to see me.

"Show her in," I snapped, "and leave us alone. She is an old friend of mine."

Rosalie looked pale, and her smile as she gave me her hand was forced and tired.

"Sit down," said I in English. "There are a lot of things I want to say to you."

She dropped in the chair at the head of my bed and I took her hand. Rosalie did not try to draw it away.

"Why haven't you been to see me?" I asked. "You got my message?"

"Yes; but I thought you would be well enough looked after without me."

"If you are thinking of La Petrovski," said I, "let me tell you that there has never been anything between us—and never will be. She is not in love with me—nor I with her. The nearest I ever came to being really in love with any woman was in a little studio apartment on the Rue Vaugirard, where it seemed to me that for the first time in my life I had