“Oh, I will rejoin you immediately.  I have forgotten my umbrella.”

“But I will go and get it for you,” proposed Michael.”

“No, no.  I have to go to the villa; I will return right away.”

She was already past them.  Rouletabille, during this, looked at Matrena Petrovna, who looked at him also, turning toward the young man a visage pale as wax.  But no one else noted the emotion of the good Matrena, who resumed pushing the general’s wheel-chair.

Rouletabille asked the officers, “Was this arrangement because the first wife of the general, Natacha’s mother, was rich?”

“No.  The general, who always had his heart in his hand,” said Boris, “married her for her great beauty.  She was a beautiful girl of the Caucasus, of excellent family besides, that Feodor Feodorovitch had known when he was in garrison at Tiflis.”

“In short,” said Rouletabille, “the day that General Trebassof dies Madame Trebassof, who now possesses everything, will have nothing, and the daughter, who now has nothing, will have everything.”

“Exactly that,” said Michael.

“That doesn’t keep Matrena Petrovna and Natacha Feodorovna from deeply loving each other,” observed Boris.

The little party drew near the “Point.”  So far the promenade had been along pleasant open country, among the low meadows traversed by fresh streams, across which tiny bridges had been built, among bright gardens guarded by porcelain dwarfs, or in the shade of small weeds from the feet of whose trees the newly-cut grass gave a seasonal fragrance.  All was reflected in the pools — which lay like glass whereon a scene-painter had cut the green hearts of the pond-lily leaves.  An adorable country glimpse which seemed to have been created centuries back for the amusement of a queen and preserved, immaculately trimmed and cleaned, from generation to generation, for the eternal charm of such an hour as this on the banks of the Gulf of Finland.

Now they had reached the bank of the Gulf, and the waves rippled to the prows of the light ships, which dipped gracefully like huge and rapid sea-gulls, under the pressure of their great white sails.

Along the roadway, broader now, glided, silently and at walking pace, the double file of luxurious equipages with impatient horses, the open carriages in which the great personages of the court saw the view and let themselves be seen.  Enormous coachmen held the reins high.  Lively young women, negligently reclining against the cushions, displayed their new Paris toilettes, and kept young officers on horseback busy with salutes.  There were all kinds of uniforms.  No talking was heard.  Everyone was kept busy looking.  There rang in the pure, thin air only the noise of the champing bits and the tintinnabulation of the bells attached to the hairy Finnish ponies’ collars.  And all that, so beautiful, fresh, charming and clear, and silent, it all seemed more a dream than even that which hung in the pools, suspended between the crystal of the air and the crystal of the water.  The transparence of the sky and the transparence of the gulf blended their two unrealities so that one could not note where the horizons met.