Now the artiste had little by little become interested and was already beginning to forget about her fatigue, and migraine, and the consumptive heroine dying in the fourth act. She was already picturing the role of an intercessor, the beautiful figure of genius merciful to a fallen woman. This was original, extravagant, and at the same time so theatrically touching! Rovinskaya, like many of her confreres, did not let one day pass by—and, if it were possible, she would not have let pass even one hour—without standing out from the crowd, without compelling people to talk about her: to-day she would participate in a pseudo-patriotic manifestation, while to-morrow she would read from a platform, for the benefit of revolutionaries exiled to Siberia, inciting verses, full of fire and vengeance. She loved to sell flowers at carnivals, in riding academies; and to sell champagne at large balls. She would think up her little bon mots beforehand, which on the morrow would be caught up by the whole town. She desired that everywhere and always the crowd should look only at her, repeat her name, love her Egyptian, green eyes, her rapacious and sensuous mouth; her emeralds on the slender and nervous hands. “I can’t grasp it all properly at once,” said she after a silence. “But if a person wants anything hard, he will attain it, and I want to fulfill your wish with all my soul. Stay, stay! ... I think a glorious thought is coming into my head ... For then, on that evening, if I mistake not, there was with us, beside the baroness and me...” “I don’t know them ... One of them walked out of the cabinet later than all of you. He kissed Jennie’s hand and said, that if she should ever need him, he was always at her service; and gave her his card, but asked her not to show it to any strangers. But later all this passed off somehow and was forgotten. In some way I never found the time to ask Jennie who this man was; while yesterday I searched for the card but couldn’t find it...” “Allow me, allow me! ... I have recalled it!” the artiste suddenly became animated. “Aha!” exclaimed she, rapidly getting off the ottoman. “It was Ryazanov... Yes, yes, yes... The advocate Ernst Andreievich Ryazanov. We will arrange everything right away. That’s a splendid thought!” She turned to the little table upon which the telephone apparatus was standing, and rang: