She was sitting at the piano, which was isolated from the rest of the room in a recess, and Usk was standing beside her to turn over the pages of her music. As she spoke she threw a little scornful glance in the direction of the defaulting guest, who had made his appearance, with profuse apologies, when the meal was just over. A man of uncertain age, looking young in a dim light, but considerably older when the glare of the electric lamps fell upon him, he was presented to the Queen as the Grand-Duke Ivan Petrovitch of Scythia. At first he had appeared to think it his duty to hover round Helene with talk of the very kind she despised, but when the four elders of the party drew together for conversation, he seemed to find a more congenial companion in King Michael, who had taken no notice of his little cousin save to tease her with reminiscences of their childhood which made her blush painfully. Usk, whose Welsh blood had boiled under the calmly inquiring glance turned upon him by the new-comer, was glad enough to follow Helene to the piano, where she tried over the accompaniments of various songs, and played now and then a few bars of one musical composition or another, “just to encourage conversation,” as she put it. “Don’t you hate him?” she inquired presently, under cover of the music, with a turn of her head in the direction of the visitor. “I don’t much like his looks,” Usk agreed. “He may say that he lost his train from Monte Carlo, but I am quite certain that he stayed at the tables too long on purpose.” “But that seems rather aimless, doesn’t it?” “Oh, he wished to be rude. I don’t know why, but I am certain it was that. He makes me--I forget the word--quake? quiver?--all over when he comes near.” “He grues you, does he? So he does me.” “I am so glad, because it shows it is not a fancy of mine. Do you know what I think it is? Look at him through the leaves of that palm; see how smooth he is, how well-brushed--is not that the phrase? Then think of him as he would look without his beard. I have seen a picture of him when he was much younger in his cousin Sonya’s album, and oh! it was such a cruel face. I call him the Tartar--you know the saying, _Grattez le Scythe, et vous trouverez_----? It amuses mamma very much, but she told me not to tell papa. He would be displeased.” “I don’t think I would tell the Grand-Duke either,” suggested Usk, half-pityingly. Could the child be so blind as not to see what the presence of the Scythian Prince at this family gathering portended? “Oh no, I should not think of it. And besides, when he comes near me, I can never talk at all. I feel like a mouse in a trap, and I can only say yes and no. You know that he married one of my cousins? She died before they had been married a year, and I believe”--her voice dropped, and her eyes sought Usk’s with a haunting horror in them--“that he killed her.” “Oh no!” Usk felt compelled to say. “Why should he?”