The sound of his own voice recalled him to himself, and before the faint _frou-frou_ of the Princess’s silk-lined robes, sweeping over the polished floor, announced her approach, he had had time to compose his features, and to adopt an attitude of interest, not untouched with criticism, as he stood before the portrait. The Princess came rustling in, exquisitely dressed (during the past week she had mitigated the severity of her weeds in various scarcely perceptible ways, which caused the general effect to be considerably less sombre), graceful and gracious, with the utmost made of every good point in face and figure. Truth to tell, her mood at the moment was not of the most tranquil. It had been no part of her plan that Cyril should be left alone with the portrait of his old love. She had intended to confront him with it unexpectedly, and to scrutinise with jealous minuteness the effect it produced upon him, but the stupidity of the footman had prevented this. If she felt any anxiety as to the result of her experiment, she did not betray it, however. Her whole manner was expressive of a superb confidence in her own power to charm, as compared with the faded and unhappy woman in the photograph. As she entered, Cyril turned towards her with a start, letting his eye-glass drop from his hand. “Pardon me, madame,” he said hastily, without waiting for her to speak first, “but I cannot help tracing in this portrait some resemblance to the features of my august mistress, Queen Ernestine. Surely it is not possible that the photograph is hers?” “Now who can have put that portrait here?” cried the Princess, in tones of strong irritation. “Yes, it is the latest likeness of my poor cousin, and I have just had it enlarged at Vindobona, but it was not intended for exhibition in public. Birnsdorf is so officious!” She lifted the scarf as though to cover the picture with it, but Cyril stopped her. “Permit me to entreat you to leave the portrait as it is, madame. If your Royal Highness needed a foil, you could find no better one than this.” The callousness of the words would have disgusted most women, but they rejoiced the Princess’s heart. Her expedient had succeeded. She let the scarf fall, and stooped to look at the photograph more closely. “There is no posing in it, you see,” she said. “My unhappy cousin never knew that she was watched. The original was merely a snap-shot taken by one of the doctors whom the King sent to Syria to visit his mother. There was some idea that it might be necessary”--_possible_ was the word on the Princess’s tongue, but she had no intention of revolting Cyril by an undue display of her hatred towards the woman she had injured--“to place her under restraint, and indeed it was a fortnight before she would consent to receive the doctors. But when they saw her they found that violence formed no part of her disorder, merely extreme depression, as you perceive there.”