268 BY ORDER OF THE CZAR.
" It is well," she replied. " I will rest now."
Ferrari left the room for a minute, returning with a number of letters.
" These are the last replies to your invitations for Mon- day."
" Thank you." she said.
He placed them upon a table inlaid with various mar- bles.
"You are not well? " he said inquiringly, " Did you see the gondola with the two English ladies, and the Bri- tish flag?"
" Yes."
" I thought otherwise."
" I saw it," she replied, " and he saw me. It makes me sad, dear friend."
The accent with which the countess spoke gave an added tone of pensiveness to the expression of her words. Ferrari, accustomed to her manner and her moods, did not notice this perhaps, but he felt that there was a softness in her tone of voice which was unusual. He had long en- joyed the privilege of an intimacy that gave him perfect freedom to say whatever he thought well for Anna and the cause in which they were both engaged. Never once had he made love to her ; never once had he dreamed of doing so. From the first moment of their renewed acquaintance after the tragedy of Czarovna she had made him under- stand that the relationship between them might be that of a man's friendship, the bond of two souls pledged to ven- geance upon their mutual enemies, and more particularly in her case upon one who seemed until the last few months destined to elude their best laid plots and snares. By a tacit understanding they were to each other simply devoted friends and fellow conspirators ; they had in their memories the conflagration at Czarovna ; but above all the knout and the steppes and the prisons of Siberia.
