“Quite,” answered Paul; “and it is the obvious duty of those who know better to teach the dog to avoid the places where the traps are set.  Thanks, the olives are excellent.”

“Ah!” said Vassili, turning courteously to Maggie, “I sometimes thank my star that I am not a landholder—­only a poor bureaucrat.  It is so difficult to comprehend these questions, mademoiselle.  But of all men in or out of Russia it is possible our dear prince knows best of what he is talking.”

“Oh, no!” disclaimed Paul, with that gravity at which some were ready to laugh.  “I only judge in a small way from, a small experience.”

“Ah! you are too modest.  You know the peasants thoroughly, you understand them, you love them—­so, at least, I have been told.  Is it not so, Mme. la Princesse?”

Karl Steinmetz was frowning over an olive.

“I really do not know,” said Etta, who had glanced across the table.

“I assure you, madame, it is so.  I am always hearing good of you, prince.”

“From whom?” asked Paul.

Vassili shrugged his peculiarly square shoulders.

“Ah!  From all and sundry.”

“I did not know the prince had so many enemies,” said Steinmetz bluntly, whereat the marquise laughed suddenly, and apparently approached within bowing distance of apoplexy.

In such wise the conversation went on during the dinner, which was a long one.  Continually, repeatedly, Vassili approached the subject of Osterno and the daily life in that sequestered country.  But those who knew were silent, and it was obvious that Etta and Maggie were ignorant of the life to which they were going.

From time to time Vassili raised his dull, yellow eyes to the servants, who d’ailleurs were doing their work perfectly, and invariably the master’s glance fell to the glasses again.  These the servants never left in peace—­constantly replenishing, constantly watching with that assiduity which makes men thirsty against their will by reason of the repeated reminder.

But tongues wagged no more freely for the choice vintages poured upon them.  Paul had a grave, strong head and that self-control against which alcohol may ply itself in vain.  Karl Steinmetz had taken his degree at Heidelberg.  He was a seasoned vessel, having passed that way before.

Etta was bright enough—­amusing, light, and gay—­so long as it was a question of mere social gossip; but whenever Vassili spoke of the country to which he expressed so deep a devotion, she, seeming to take her cue from her husband and his agent, fell to pleasant, non-committing silence.

It was only after dinner, in the drawing-room, while musicians discoursed Offenbach and Rossini from behind a screen of fern and flower, that Vassili found an opportunity of addressing himself directly to Etta.  In part she desired this opportunity, with a breathless apprehension behind her bright society smile.  Without her assistance he never would have had it.