said Dönhof, and bending a little aside, in an undertone he added to Maria Nikolaevna, with a smile, 'The very man . . . your compatriot . . . the Russian . . .'
'Impossible!' she exclaimed also in an undertone; she shook her finger at him, and at once began to bid good-bye both to him and the long secretary, who was, to judge by every symptom, head over ears in love with her; he positively gaped every time he looked at her. Dönhof promptly took leave with amiable docility, like a friend of the family who understands at half a word what is expected of him; the secretary showed signs of restiveness, but Maria Nikolaevna turned him out without any kind of ceremony.
'Get along to your sovereign mistress,' she said to him (there was at that time in Wiesbaden a certain princess di Monaco, who looked surprisingly like a cocotte of the poorer sort); 'what do you want to stay with a plebeian like me for?'
'Really, dear madam,' protested the luckless secretary, 'all the princesses in the world.. . .'
But Maria Nikolaevna was remorseless, and the secretary went away, parting and all.
Maria Nikolaevna was dressed that day very much 'to her advantage,' as our grandmothers used to say. She wore a pink glacé silk dress,
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