1 64 BY ORDER OF THE CZAR.
mother within the shadow of the window-seat, had noted the beautiful image that had inspired his tragic picture, though now and then it seemed to him as if there were a world of comedy also in the lady's smile ; but the young artist was not sufficiently experienced in the dramas of real life to be well acquainted with the acting that is often more intense on the real than on the mimic stage. The countess had a part to play, and she played it to perfection when the audience was in evidence. When she was alone with her Fate there were even times when she tried to forget herself, or only to remember those happy early days of Czar- ovna, the awful eclipse of which the reader has a mel?ncholy knowledge. Phil noted her pale fair face, her soft violet eyes, her wealth of deep-red hair, her grace, her imposing figure, her distinguished manner ; but never once did he find a suggestion of the sad, somewhat weird look in her eyes, until he had talked with her, as he did presently, after Mrs. Ghetwynd had brought him where she was sitting beneath a cluster of tall palms, near the great open ingle nook which Mrs. Chetwynd had constructed in her drawing room in defiance of many rules of art, but with singularly picturesque effect.
" Mr. Chetwynd has told me of your picture," she said, in a rich musical voice, and with an accent of a somewhat composite character, neither French nor German, but with a touch of both, and perhaps also a suggestion of Rus- sian. " Your picture interests me."
"You are very kind to say so."
" I say so, not simply to be kind, but for the truth that it is so."
" I fear my friend has exaggerated its merits," said Philip, beginning to feel at his ease after the first flutter of nervousness and admiration.
" It is of the subject that I am also interested ; it has the merit, that of sympathy. You were born in Russia ? "
