BY ORDER OF THE CZAR. 173
Philip's heart stood still for a moment when she called him her ' dear Philip,' and then began to beat fast and furious.
11 That is why I did not wish you to see it," he said, his face aflame, his tongue running on at a rapid rate. " You, who are so beautiful ; you who should rather sit for a Queen of Beauty a goddess for men to worship and women to admire for Arthur's Queen, or Cleopatra. And in that there would also be tragedy, but the tragedy of the poet, not the vulgar tragedy of a troop of prisoners. Let me blot the libel out."
He advanced towards the sketch, as if he would have carried out his suggested threat. She laid her hand upon his arm, and he thrilled at the touch.
" Not so, dear friend," she said ; " it is a compliment to me that you can think of me as pathetically as that," and she pointed to the picture. " Ah ! if you only knew ! And she was beautiful, that girl I am thinking about ; but Siberia was too good for her ; she was of the cursed race of the Jew, and they called her Queen of the Ghetto in the place where she lived in innocence, and was engaged as you are, and more, with the day fixed for the wedding, and the year of betrothal at an end ; and she, be sure, marked .it in the calendar, and he her betrothed. You are in the right it is tragic, this picture of yours ! It has also enough of sorrow in that one incident of the woman or her lover to call it tragedy and perhaps the old man might be her father, eh ? Was that in your thought ? "
While she spoke she removed her bonnet, and drew her hair about her head as suggested in the picture, as Philip had seen it at the Opera, and she took her seat, and he followed her, palette in hand.
" There, my friend, go on with your study ; it is not the first of the times I have sat for the artist. I can make that expression, perhaps, for you ; I try to look back to the poor girl I tell you of. There I "
