ttle bon mots beforehand, which on the
morrow would be caught up by the whole town. She desired that
everywhere and always the crowd should look only at her, repeat her
name, love her Egyptian, green eyes, her rapacious and sensuous mouth;
her emeralds on the slender and nervous hands.

"I can't grasp it all properly at once," said she after a silence. "But
if a person wants anything hard, he will attain it, and I want to
fulfill your wish with all my soul. Stay, stay! ... I think a glorious
thought is coming into my head ... For then, on that evening, if I
mistake not, there was with us, beside the baroness and me..."

"I don't know them ... One of them walked out of the cabinet later than
all of you. He kissed Jennie's hand and said, that if she should ever
need him, he was always at her service; and gave her his card, but
asked her not to show it to any strangers. But later all this passed
off somehow and was forgotten. In some way I never found the time to
ask Jennie who this man was; while yesterday I searched for the card
but couldn't find it..."

"Allow me, allow me! ... I have recalled it!" the artiste suddenly
became animated. "Aha!" exclaimed she, rapidly getting off the ottoman.
"It was Ryazanov... Yes, yes, yes... The advocate Ernst Andreievich
Ryazanov. We will arrange everything right away. That's a splendid
thought!"

She turned to the little table upon which the telephone apparatus was
standing, and rang:

"Central--18-35 please ... Thank you ... Hello! ... Ask Ernst
Andreievich to the telephone ... The artiste Rovinskaya ... Thank you
... Hello! ... Is this you, Ernst Andreievich? Very well, very well,
but now it isn't a matter of little hands. Are you free? ... Drop the
nonsense! ... The matter is serious. Couldn't you come up to me for a
quarter of an hour? ...No, no ... Yes ... Only as a kind and a clever
man. You slander yourself ... Well, that's splendid, really ... Well, I
am not especially well-dressed, but I have a justification--a fearful
headache. No, a lady, a girl ... You will see for yourself, come as
soon as possible ... Thanks! Au revior! ..."

"He will come right away," said Rovinskaya, hanging up the receiver.
"He is a charming and awfully clever man. Everything is possible to
him, even the almost impossible to man ... But in the meantime ...
pardon me--your name?"

Tamara was abashed, but then smiled at herself:

"Oh, it isn't worth your disturbing yourself, Ellena Victorovna