140 BY ORDER OF THE CZAR.
for their social gaieties. Nobody would ever be able to work and play as well in the same place, it was feared, when Hymen was permitted to light his torch within the sacred precincts; but "Out" made any studio safe from interruption. "Out," communicated to the Porter's Lodge, was as powerful a talisman of protection from callers as if the painter who had exhibited the legend on his wicket had been leagues away; and so the opportunity for serious work was secured. It was a tribute to the earnestness and industry of the region, during the weeks immediately preceding the Spring Exhibitions, that, as a rule, the entire colony was "out" from early morn till dewy eve; and Philip's "Out" was therefore not singular on this bright and breezy April morning.
There was a cheerful fire in his stove. The sun was streaming in at his western window. Having promptly drawn a blind down against the radiant light, Philip took off his black morning coat and waistcoat, and put on his brown velvet working jacket, removed his boots in favor of a pair of white tennis shoes, and took up a position of observation with his back to the stove, which was a handsome terra cotta construction, German in appearance, but with the advantage of an open grate, making it a compromise between England and the foreigner so much as to retain the national prejudice in favor of an open fire, while it secured the German and Russian practicability of a real heating stove.
Philip stood with his back to the fire and surveyed the room; not that he saw anything in it, but he surveyed it all the same, looked round it, up at the roof, and down at the floor, the couch with its tiger skin, his low easy chairs with their fluffy cushions, his parquette floor with its rugs, his screen full of rough sketches, his throne for sitters, his two great easels, his cabinet crowded with papers of all kinds drawings, — old engravings and new
