Besides, I reflected, had she known, it was hardly in nature that she should have spoken so gently. I dismissed the suspicion from my mind, and turned me again to the inspection of the tray.
Just below my eyes lay a miniature of a girl, painted very delicately upon a thin oval slip of ivory. The face was dark in complexion, with black hair, the nose a trifle tip-tilted, and the lips full and red, but altogether a face very alluring and handsome. I was most struck, however, with the freshness of the colours; amongst those old curios the portrait shone like a gem. I took it up, and as I did so, Otto Krax leaned forward.
"Otto!" said Ilga sharply, "you stand between Mr. Buckler and the light."
The servant moved obediently from the window.
"This," said I, "hath less appearance of antiquity than the rest of your purchases."
"It was given to me," she replied. "The face is beautiful?"
Now it had been my custom of late to consider a face beautiful or not in proportion to its resemblance to that of Countess Lukstein. So I looked carefully at the miniature, and thence to Ilga. She was gazing closely at me with parted lips, and an odd intentness in her expression. I noticed this the more particularly, for that her eyes, which were violet in their natural hue, had a trick of growing dark when she was excited or absorbed.
"Why!" I exclaimed, in surprise. "One might think you fancy me acquainted with the lady."
"Well," she replied, laying a hand upon her heart, "what if I did--fancy that?" She stressed the word "fancy" with something of a sneer.
"Nay," said I, "the face is strange to me."