We were near neighbours with the Podgoritchany’s, their estate is within a few miles from Dolgik. The young count was always devoted to me; he believed that we were destined for one another, and it was the hope of his life to make me his wife, but my heart was still entirely at my own disposal and I never gave him more than a passing thought, being hard to catch as a sunbeam. It wasn’t very fair, however, to keep him dangling after me like that if I didn’t mean that it should come to anything. One day, as I was practising one my favourite Chopin’s Etudes, the count came in and leant on the piano, his eyes dwelling upon me with a passionate expression; suddenly he seized my right hand and kissed it, whilst I played accords with my left one. I knew quite well what he was going to say. He implored me to marry him, but I had not yet made up my mind to part with my liberty and said “No” point blank, telling him he would have to get on as best he could without me. His face fell and he looked very miserable, my rejected lover, his matrimonial hopes being rudely shattered. A wealthy country squire, the possessor of a fine adjoining estate, who had the reputation of being a very good catch, came to pay us a visit. I made no attempt whatever to show off my best points and made up my mind, on the contrary, to make a guy of myself, putting on my most unbecoming gown and dressing my hair unfashionably, so that he might see me at my worst. Our guest was all sentiment and poetry, his language was “music spoken,” and I responded by the most crude prose. He asked me at luncheon: “_Mademoiselle aime les fleurs._” “_Oh, non, monsieur, je préfère le jambon!_” I answered, helping myself to a second portion of ham. Mamma looked very annoyed indeed at this unromantic turn of conversation. I surely had not the vocation of a domestic paragon; when I poured out tea it was done the reverse of neatly, and the spotless teacloth was spotless no longer, for I poured more water on to it than into the cups, and mamma regretfully decided that I hadn’t got the right turn for housekeeping. My culinary efforts were also not to meet approval, and the cakes that I amused myself in baking, one day, were recognised, I am aggrieved to say, as not being fit to eat. CHAPTER VII IN ST. PETERSBURG AGAIN My thoughts flew back constantly to St. Petersburg. Being a girl who had already tasted city life, it did not please me in the least to bury myself in the country, and I longed to mix with the gay world again. One day, an invitation came from my aunt Leon Galitzine, asking me to spend two or three months with them. That was indeed a piece of good fortune! What could be more exciting, more delicious! Visions of balls floated before my eyes and I simply danced with joy, meaning to amuse myself tremendously.