Page:By order of the Czar.djvu/195



BY ORDER OF THE CZAR. 183

it impossible to control herself. Her tongue wagged at a tremendous rate. " Moreover," she continued, " if you had any wish or any curiosity about it, you could have asked us if we were going to the Chetwynds. A young man does not get engaged every day ; it is an incident, at all events, in a young girl's life which is more than ordinary; but "

" Really, Mrs. Milbanke, I don't think I have deserved to be so severely lectured ; and without a hearing," said Philip, interrupting Dolly's sister in her mad career of rebuke. " I was going to explain that I have been un- usually busy ; you know of what importance it is to me that I should lay in that medal picture before I go to Venice ; and I met the lady at Mrs. Chetwynd's whom I wanted to sit for the central figure ; she kindly consented to give me a sitting this morning ; she came, and the moment she left I drove here."

"What lady?" said Mrs. Milbanke.

And then Philip remembered that the entire story of the mysterious lady of the opera was between himself and Chetwynd and of course Chetwynd's wife. You tell a man something he is not to repeat to anyone, not even to his wife ; he gives you his word, and keeps it, no doubt, as a rule, except in regard to the pledge not to tell his wife. Philip did not quite know why he had not told the story to his dear friends the Milbankes. Perhaps he had not had time ; perhaps he thought Mrs. Milbanke would talk too much about it. He had it in his mind to tell Dolly on the night when he proposed to her, but for some reason or other he did not.

" The lady whom I thought I saw at the opera," Philip replied, " and whose face gave me the idea for the sketch of ' Tragedy.' Did I not tell you ? "

" No," said Mrs. Milbanke, pursing up her little mouth and waiting for further explanation.