This tender, complete, and devoted maternal love estranged her somewhat from her husband, and gave her a special distaste for the life he led at Pampeln. She went with the prince, of course, to Courland, but she was rarely to be seen with him on his hunting expeditions and excursions on the banks of the Livonian gulf. The result of this was the birth of a sort of coolness between the prince and his wife, which was sure to grow day by day. Mme. Podoi very quickly saw what was happening. She spoke to her daughter about it, but Lise only replied: "Why, mother, the prince is a very amiable man, but he is far from being the husband I dreamed of. He never in his life had a passion, and never will have, except for horses and dogs; I am sure of it." The princess spoke the words in so bitter a tone, and with such a gleam in her fine eyes, that the ex-actress, well versed in this sort of thing, felt a presentiment of some catastrophe in the future. She was careful, however, to betray no sign of uneasiness. She smiled even, and, smiling, made up her mind to watch. At the end of three years from the birth of her son, when her constant care for him had become less indispensable, the princess showed a disposition to return to worldly pleasures. At first she was seen at the Michael Theatre, then she began to hold receptions anew, opening her doors to the foreign artistes that her mother introduced to her; and, finally, her reappearance at the court balls was triumphantly welcomed. Then, when the season in the capital was over, she became, to the surprise and joy of the prince, the hardy amazon that she had been in the first months of their marriage. It was like a new birth in Lise, attributable, one might suppose, to the development of her symmetrical and dazzling beauty, while her bearing betrayed a kind of new vigor, surprising to her friends, which seemed to welcome noise and movement. She was soon a constant attendant at all entertainments, and took her place at the head of fashionable women in the highest circles of Russian society.