Irene had proposed to meet Gzhatski at the station; but he had obstinately insisted on coming to fetch her, and she had been obliged to give in. Her acquaintances at the _pension_ said good-bye to her very coldly; they could not forgive her for her treachery to the cause of their beloved Catholicism. Some of them regarded her with contempt, others with envy. Gzhatski’s cab stood at the door, and Irene was already seated in it, impatiently longing to start. The servants were tying on the luggage, Gzhatski was standing on the pavement, smoking and giving occasional directions, and at the windows of the _pension_ interested faces could be seen peeping through the curtains. At this moment Père Etienne, puffing and panting in hot haste, appeared round the corner. The kind old man had just received Irene’s note, and had come to say good-bye, and to bless her before her departure. Catching sight of Gzhatski he stopped still for a moment, completely dumbfounded, while Gzhatski smiled in undisguised triumph. The old man was angry. His face assumed a cold and proud expression, and taking no notice whatever of Irene he turned to the entrance of the _pension_. Having, however, already reached the door, he suddenly, in spite of himself, looked round. Irene was gazing at him with such a confused, guilty air, that Père Etienne’s severity involuntarily relaxed, and he bowed sadly. “Poor girl!” his kind, sympathetic old face seemed to say—“you have thrown away your last chance of happiness!” XIX A brilliant spring was reigning in Monte Carlo. Not the pale, cold, Russian spring, when in May the first shy snowdrops barely manage to force their white heads through the ground; nor yet the Roman spring, that Gzhatski called “modest,” but the real, passionate, southern precursor of summer. April was not yet over, but the weather was hot as at midsummer. The blue sea sparkled dazzlingly under the unbearably strong rays of the sun, flowers hung like thick carpets over walls and terraces, gorgeous roses climbed over the trellises and fences of the gardens. And no one was there to admire all this splendour—for the season was over, the hotels and shops were closed, the shutters of the villas were up, and Monte Carlo resembled the kingdom of the “Sleeping Beauty.” All the life that was still there was concentrated in the neighbourhood of the gaming rooms, and it was here that Irene and Gzhatski spent their days, walking in the lovely Casino gardens, or sitting on the fairy-like terrace overlooking the sea.