BY ORDER OF THE CZAR. 295
Then she gave her attention to other guests, and Philip followed her with his eyes as one in a dream. Jenny spoke to him, Walter spoke to him, Dolly stood by his side. He heard them not, saw them not. Several guests noticed his wrapt attention and smiled. It was plain to see that the hostess had made a conquest of the young Englishman, and that he did not attempt to resist the spell she had cast upon him.
" She is indeed a magnificent woman," remarked one Venetian to another, " a Jewess, I believe ; might be a Venetian instead of a Russian ; has the features of the old masters, the hair too ; our own Titian might have painted her."
" The young fellow who is evidently annoying his lady companions is perhaps an artist, and thinking as you think," said the other, disappearing among the throng.
Jenny overheard this, and for a moment tried to think as the stranger suggested, that Philip's admiration was the ad- miration of the painter ; but she soon gave up that excuse and felt herself insulted through her sister Dolly.
Presently Philip, with some foolish excuse or other, left them only for a moment, he said, to speak to an artist whom he would like them to know ; but a few minutes later it seemed as if this was only an excuse to be once more within the brilliant circle which continually sur- rounded the countess.
Jenny could no longer restrain herself. All her desire to see and be seen in Venetian society, all her worldliness, all her love of society, vanished in her sense of pride and in her love for Dolly.
" My dear," she said to Walter, the moment there was an opportunity to speak to him, " he is madly in love with that woman. We'have made a mistake; his engage- ment to Dolly is ours rather than his ; it must not go on ; Dolly must not be sacrificed to her match-making sister."
