There was a certain accent of appeal in her voice, very tender and sweet, as though she knew my story and was ready to forgive it. Had we been alone I believe that I should have blurted the whole truth out; only Otto Krax stood before me on the opposite side of the table, Mademoiselle Durette was seated in the room behind. Ilga had ceased to sort the articles, and now began to point out particular trinkets, describing their purposes and antiquity and the shops where she had discovered them. But I paid small heed to her words; that question--did she know?--pressed too urgently upon my thoughts. A glance at the stolid indifference of Otto Krax served to reassure me. Through him alone could suspicion have come, and I felt certain that he had as yet not recognised me. Besides, I reflected, had she known, it was hardly in nature that she should have spoken so gently. I dismissed the suspicion from my mind, and turned me again to the inspection of the tray. Just below my eyes lay a miniature of a girl, painted very delicately upon a thin oval slip of ivory. The face was dark in complexion, with black hair, the nose a trifle tip-tilted, and the lips full and red, but altogether a face very alluring and handsome. I was most struck, however, with the freshness of the colours; amongst those old curios the portrait shone like a gem. I took it up, and as I did so, Otto Krax leaned forward. "Otto!" said Ilga sharply, "you stand between Mr. Buckler and the light." The servant moved obediently from the window. "This," said I, "hath less appearance of antiquity than the rest of your purchases." "It was given to me," she replied. "The face is beautiful?" Now it had been my custom of late to consider a face beautiful or not in proportion to its resemblance to that of Countess Lukstein. So I looked carefully at the miniature, and thence to Ilga. She was gazing closely at me with parted lips, and an odd intentness in her expression. I noticed this the more particularly, for that her eyes, which were violet in their natural hue, had a trick of growing dark when she was excited or absorbed. "Why!" I exclaimed, in surprise. "One might think you fancy me acquainted with the lady." "Well," she replied, laying a hand upon her heart, "what if I did--fancy that?" She stressed the word "fancy" with something of a sneer. "Nay," said I, "the face is strange to me." "Are you sure?" she asked. "Look again! Look again, Mr. Buckler!" Disturbed by this recurrence of her irony, I fixed my eyes, as she bade me, upon the picture, and strangely enough, upon a closer scrutiny I began gradually to recognise it; but in so vague and dim a fashion, that whether the familiarity lay in the contour of the lineaments or merely in the expression, I could by no effort of memory determine. "Well?" she asked, with a smile which had nothing amiable or pleasant in it. "What say you now?"