Later when the men joined the ladies in the _salon_, Paul sought his sprite, but she was careful, or so it seemed, not to be left alone with him. And it was not until he said good-night that he could express to her the wish to see her again. "You are such an uncertain lady," he said to her, smiling, "so restless within the confines of a town-house, that I hope you will let me call to-morrow--before you suddenly go dashing off to climb some peak, or to visit some foreign coast." "Come for tea, to-morrow, if you wish." She looked up at him quickly--searchingly, Paul thought--and his blood raced madly through his veins. Adieus were said, and Paul found himself again in his taximeter cab. In a state of mind quite different from that which had obsessed him on his way to the dinner, he arrived once more at the _hotel_. "Ah! these mad English!" Paul's chauffeur said to himself as he pocketed an extravagant _pourboire_. "We see too few of them! Milord Rosbif must have been having some famous old wine over in the _Faubourg St. Germain_, is it not so?" he asked himself. But it was the more exalted intoxication of the soul that sent Paul up the steps with the elastic stride of youth. * * * * * Who was she? Paul did not know, even now. Mademoiselle Vseslavitch had said nothing of her family or her home. Beyond the fact that she was Russian, and a friend of the Dalmatian Ambassador's wife--herself a Slav--Paul was still ignorant. Indeed, for all he knew, she might be some poor relation--lack of fortune was the only possible reason he could ascribe for her being unmarried. Beautiful and attractive women, of good family--if they were rich--did not wander over the Continent long without husbands. Well--that mattered nothing. Thank heaven, he was not bound by any necessity of fortune. Before he switched off his light that night Paul took from one of his boxes a small flat object of red morocco inlaid with gold. He lifted a tiny lid and there, through wide-set and strangely fascinating eyes a lady looked at him. It was the most amazing miniature Paul had ever seen. And the face depicted there with some unknown master's consummate skill--how often had it proved for him the only consolation he could find in the whole world. His eyes dimmed as they conveyed to him the image of his still beloved _Imperatorskoye_--he pressed the bauble to his lips. Ah! God! the cold glass! How different from her melting kiss! Not easily did he control his emotions. Of late years he seldom opened the portrait because of the almost overwhelming rush of memories it always brought to him.