Sometimes a slight shadow of suspicion would flit across my mind, as it often had on finding her absent, yet when she spoke caressingly to me I at once found myself laughing at the foolishness of my thoughts, basking in the sun of her brilliant beauty, heedless and content. Prior to our marriage, I had been madly jealous of every slight attention paid to her by one of my own sex, of whatever age, but now, recognising how marvellously fair she was, and that wherever she went she became the centre of attraction, I was no longer angry with any of our guests who paid court to her. Beck dined with us frequently, always gay and amusing, while once or twice Verblioudovitch had also accepted our invitation, and treated Ella with the courtliness of the polished diplomatist. I did not invite the latter often, because of her antipathy towards him. When, after his first visit, I had asked her what she thought of him, she had replied,-- "There is something about him I don't like, dearest. I cannot explain what it is. Perhaps it is his excessive politeness; or it may be his profuse flattery that bores me; nevertheless, I seem to have a feeling that I ought to avoid him." "He's one of the best of fellows, darling," I said, laughing at her misgivings. "In my bachelor days we were very close friends." "I don't like him," she answered frankly. "I hate all Russians." "I thought you said once you would like to go to Russia?" "Yes, I am anxious to see the country, but the Russians I have met I have always detested," she said, adding, with seriousness, "Now that I am your wife I may speak plainly, may I not?" "Of course, darling." "Then, in your own interests, promise me to avoid Paul Verblioudovitch as much as possible." "Why?" I asked, surprised. "Because--well," she answered in hesitation; "because I have some curious, inexplicable feeling that he is not your friend." Then it occurred to me that they had been sitting together that evening in a cosy-corner in the drawing-room, deep in conversation, and it might be that Paul had uttered some compliments meant to be polite, but which she had misconstrued into flirtation. In that case, it was only natural that, loving me so deeply as she did, she should warn me that Paul was not my friend. "In what way do you suspect him of being my enemy?" I inquired. "He is untrustworthy," she replied, an answer that tended to confirm my supposition. On several other occasions I laughed at her fears, but she always made the same reply, that she believed he was not straightforward, and even went so far as to ask me not to invite him to our house in future. This caused me some little annoyance, for of all men Paul Verblioudovitch was one of my most valued friends; and, further, while she had conceived a violent dislike towards him, she nevertheless allowed herself to be flattered by the man of whom I had once been madly jealous--Andrew Beck.