Like most women of Southern Russia, Vera was a decided brunette. From the purity of her features, the perfect oval of her face, and the smallness of her head, she might have been taken to be of Grecian origin. Her large eyes, shaded by long, up-curled lashes, were unspeakably gentle: a virginal smile was constantly playing about her scarlet and slightly parted lips, revealing the pearly teeth. From the national head-gear that she wore two long braids of hair hung, reaching to below the waist, which was defined by her linen dress of various bright colors. Reared at the château until she was fifteen years old, Vera spoke French with a pure accent, had some knowledge of music, and, through her natural elegance of movement of bearing, was a charming child. Her father, who loved her fondly, could not make up his mind to part with her to the princess, who had several times asked him to do so, wishing that Vera should be a sort of elder sister to her little son. Paul Meyrin was too much of an artist not to pay homage to Vera's beauty. The princess had kissed her tenderly. Thinking that it could not but please Lise Olsdorf, he said, approaching her: "What a lovely young girl that is. I supposed that only women of your station in life could be so perfectly beautiful." "You see that you were mistaken, monsieur," the princess replied, rather ungraciously. "Vera is, in fact, very pretty. She is just as good and as modest, and I love her very much." Then, moving toward the group of hunters, who had not dismounted, she left the painter standing there, and asking himself uneasily if he had not a second time displeased the woman whom he was growing more infatuated about hour by hour. A few minutes later the blasts on the horns were again heard, the hunters went off on their way toward the Wandau, and the princess, having remounted with the aid of one of the servants, gave the signal for a start to be made. She wished to be back at the château by breakfast-time. Paul was the only male guest of the prince who had not joined the hunt, and he reckoned on the fact to afford the chance of an explanation between himself and Lise; but in the course of the hour that was spent on the return journey to Pampeln he could not get a moment alone with the princess. She never was away from the side of the carriages in which her mother and friends were. Vexed and desperate, wondering whether it was that Lise Olsdorf dreaded him or that she was merely a coquette and laughing at him, Paul Meyrin determined to force her hand. Fortune was about to give him a chance of doing so sooner than he had dared to hope--that very day indeed. In the evening, about six o'clock, when the few guests remaining at the château were going to their rooms to dress for dinner, the artist saw the princess crossing the lawn and going toward one of the alleys of the park.