The countess looked at the beautiful pair with a mild and happy smile, and a long silence prevailed in the lofty room.
But the old clock measured these moments with its calm pendulum, the moments follow each other with eternal regularity, and never change for the short joys and long sorrows which form the life of man on earth.
When Clara returned to her room late in the evening, she laid the golden case with the faded rose at the foot of the crucifix, and now her prayers went up as lightly winged to heaven as the perfume of spring flowers, and in her heart as pure and wondrous melodies arose, as the song of praise of the angels who surround the throne of eternal love.
CHAPTER XXII.
[RUSSIA].
In a large well-lighted cabinet of his palace in St. Petersburg, before an enormous table covered with heaps of papers, which, notwithstanding their number, were evidently in exemplary order, sat the vice-chancellor of the Russian empire, Prince Alexander Gortschakoff.
Although it was still early morning, the prince was carefully dressed. He wore a black frock coat, unbuttoned and thrown back on account of the heat, over under-clothes of some white summer material. The fine intelligent face, with its expression of suppressed irony about the mouth, and with short, grey hair, was buried behind a high black cravat and tall linen collar, and the eyes that usually looked out so keenly, so prudently, with such good-tempered, almost roguish humour, through their gold-rimmed spectacles, gazed into the young day displeased and discontented.
Before the prince stood his confidential secretary, Monsieur von Hamburger; a slender man, of the middle height, with an open, intelligent expression, and lively, clever eyes.
He was in the act of bringing before the prince various personal affairs, without any connexion to diplomacy. Before him, on the prince's table, lay a large packet of acts and papers.
He had just ended a report, and with a pencil he held in his hand he noted down the minister's resolution on its contents. Then he laid the paper on the large pile of acts, took it up from the table and bowed, to show that his business was concluded.