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BY ORDER OF THE CZAR. 159

" Who knows. She may be favorable to the young Russian party."

" What, as the widow of a Russian nobleman, devoted to the Czar ? "

" The possibility I suggest is, of course, very remote ; but her secretary, Signer Andrea Ferrari, who is evidently her right hand, looks anything but the character of a Rus- sian loyalist ; moreover he is a Jew, and furthermore he is an Italian Jew."

" Might it be possible that he is in the pay of the Russian Government ? "

" It might; anything is possible," Dick replied, " but I thought a passing glimmer of satisfaction passed over his otherwise Sphinx-like face when I said your mother was a rebel. Anyhow they are a strange couple ; and the lady is a wonderfully fascinating and lovely woman. Why she should be peering about in* Lady Marchmount's box, as you seem to have seen her, is an odd thing, the more so that in the opposite box, or at least the one nearly oppo- site, was a distinguished Russian party ; one would think that the Countess Stravensky would have known her com- patriots, and would have visited them or they her ! "

" Yes," said Philip in a thoughtful way ; " and what is equally strange is that Lady Marchmount says she was not in her box."

"True; you had not got into an unhealthy state of mind over your work and fancied you saw her, eh ? "

" No, and I cannot help thinking she had some secret curiosity to satisfy in regard to that Russian General Petronovitch and his bride. When I thought of the inci- dent later I wondered if she were afraid they might see her ; whether the bride might have been a rival ; or if she wished to recall the appearance of some person in that box whom she had not seen perhaps for a long time. Lady Marchmount was, to my thinking, telling a diplomatic lie when she said no one had been into her box."