She
was treating him so cruelly--so much more cruelly than he knew! She laid
her hand gently upon his, and said, 'You are not angry with me?'

He? Not at all. Why should he be angry with her?

'For not coming in. I did say I would, but at the last moment I--I did
not think I should hurt you so much.'

'You hurt me very much indeed.'

When a gentleman of severely correct deportment is betrayed into a
word or two of emotion, oh, what an impression they make upon a woman's
heart! They upset her almost as much as the tears of an officer in
uniform.

'No, no,' she said, 'please, please do not distress yourself any more
about me. Please say that you are not angry now.'

As she spoke she leaned quite close to him, letting her flowers slip
down. She felt quite safe with two broad black backs and two black
cockades visible on the box under a large umbrella.

'Look,' she went on; 'I promise you to come once--at least
once--before----' but here she stopped in dismay. Carried away by her
feelings, she was on the point of telling him that they were soon to
part, and that she was going to St. Petersburg. Recovering herself in a
moment, she declared emphatically that she would call unannounced some
afternoon when she was not going to visit the mausoleum.

'But you go there every afternoon,' he said, with clenched teeth and
such a queer accent of suppressed indignation that a smile played
beneath the widow's veil, and to make a diversion she put down the
window. The shower was over. The brougham had turned into a poor
quarter, where the street in its squalid gaiety seemed to feel that the
worst of the year was past, as the sun, almost hot enough for summer,
lighted up the wretched shops, the barrows at the gutter's edge,
the tawdry placards, and the rags that fluttered in the windows. The
Princess looked out upon it with indifference. Such trivialities are
non-existent for people accustomed to see them from the cushions of
their carriage at an elevation of two feet from the road. The comfort
of the springs and the protection of the glass have a peculiar influence
upon the eyes, which take no interest in things below their level.

Madame de Rosen was thinking, 'How he loves me! And how nice he is!' The
other suitor was of course more dignified, but it would have been much
pleasanter with this one. Oh, dear! The happiest life is but a service
incomplete, and never a perfect set!

By this time they were nearing the cemetery.