Page:By order of the Czar.djvu/267



BY ORDER OF THE CZAR. 255

Walter, " how Philip loves our dear Dolly ; " but Dolly, by that subtle instinct that woman is blessed with, or cursed with, as the case may be, felt the hollowness of all this, detected the want of a true ring in Philip's loving words. She noted the embarrassment that Philip felt now and then, when the face and memory of the other woman obtruded themselves in the course of his tender speeches ; and this night, on the Grand Canal, while his thoughts would wander to the Russian-Jewish woman, her heart beat plaintively to her doubts and fears, touched with suspicion and melancholy that she endeavored to debit to the past and its faded glories, to the stories of Desdemona and Juliet, to the mournful episodes of Venetian history, and the emblematical structure of the Bridge of Sighs that seemed to be the natural pictorial epilogue to the gloomiest of Italian tragedies.

" It is difficult to talk," said Philip presently, when Jenny had remarked upon their general silence.

" It is not necessary," said Jenny, " we can pretty well interpret each other's thoughts."

" If we could ! " said Philip with something like a sigh,

" And what then ? " said Jenny, laughingly. " I will give you a penny for yours."

" You don't bid high enough."

" I will give you all you dare ask," said Dolly, half jest- ingly, half archly, half in earnest, and with her heart at the moment full of a strange curiosity.

" Pardon ! " said Beppo, interposing with a drag on his oar, that brought the gondola to a sudden standstill, " this is the palace where the lady of the red gondola is. stay ing, very rich, very beautiful, a Russian, arrived here three days since, everybody talking about her. Yesterday she went to the ghetto and distributed a thousand marks among the poor ; and this is her gondola coming from the reception given by the Princess Radna, wife of General