Page:By order of the Czar.djvu/138

226 BY ORDER OF THE CZAR. would be of all things the best for Phil, whom she loved as ardently as her somewhat frivolous and too impulsive nature would permit. She loved him intensely, while the fit was on, just as she loved her friends while they were there, with this additional weight in Philip's favor, that he was her son, that she was proud of him, and that all of her impassioned affection that was not absorbed in politics, society, and in those memories of the past about which she wrote so much in the magazines, was absorbed in her darling — the apple of her eye, the joy of her widowhood, "the genius of a line of brilliant men and women," to borrow her own words, as we have borrowed some of Sam Swynford's vocabulary.

"The fact is," said Walter, as he handed his choicest brand of cigars to Swynford and Forsyth, and he was addressing the former, "Philip is going with us to Venice I believe."'

"Lucky dog," said Sam, "I wish I could."

Walter didn't dream of saying, "nobody asked you, my boy," but in a sidewink at Phil he allowed the artist to understand that such was the case, and that for his own part, even setting aside the question of Dolly, he would prefer the cultured society of Phil to the more vulgar if more genial companionship of Sam.

"Too busy making money just now," said Sam, "to get away even for a day." He said this as cheerily as if he had not absolutely lost half the ten thousand we have already heard about.

A true speculator, Sam, no whining, no despondency over losses, just the same keen firm grip of things whether he lost or won, just the same looking forward to the big fortune he meant to win, with the exception that losses were a sort of tonic to him.

"The city is very lively just now?" said Walter interrogatively, addressing Sam.