CHAPTER VIIMaria Alexandrovna’s genius had conceived a great and daring project.
To marry her daughter to a rich man, a prince, and a cripple; to marry her secretly, to take advantage of the senile feebleness of her guest, to marry her daughter to this old man burglariously, as her enemies would call it,—was not only a daring, it was a downright audacious, project.
Of course, in case of success, it would be a profitable undertaking enough; but in the event of non-success, what an ignominious position for the authors of such a failure.
Maria Alexandrovna knew all this, but she did not despair. She had been through deeper mire than this, as she had rightly informed Zina.
Undoubtedly all this looked rather too like a robbery on the high road to be altogether pleasant; but Maria Alexandrov
