'I only did my duty, madam, though the count was pleased to think I did more,' replied Cecil, 'and bestowed this ring upon me.'
'My birthday gift to my dear brother!' said the younger lady, laughingly.
'Your hand has worn it, then?' asked Cecil.
'Since I was a little girl in Vienna.'
'That enhances the value of it to me,' said Cecil gallantly, with a bow; 'but surely it must have been a world too wide for one of your fingers.'
'True; but I had it enlarged for Michail.'
Now, during the natural well-bred inquiries concerning his injury, and so forth, Cecil had opportunity for observing his hostess and her daughter Margarita.
The countess, though verging on fifty, was still very handsome, for the Servian women, by their mode of life, can prolong their beauty beyond the average climacteric. She wore a long flowing dress of black cashmere, with a train behind, and confined at the waist by a silver girdle; a frill of softest muslin was round her throat, and a square of fine white lace arranged like a widow's cap was pinned over her head, with the ends falling on her shoulders. She had clearly cut features, soft dark hair lined with silver, fine eyes, and a shapely figure still.
Margarita was a womanly-looking girl of more than middle height, having a full and rounded figure of remarkable grace and elegance of bearing, set off by quantities of delicate lace and flowing drapery. Stately in walk and in every movement, she was a brilliant, flashing, and imperial-like beauty, with large and liquid eyes, a clear-cut aquiline profile, masses of rich, dark hair, and a small mobile mouth, with pouting, red and rather sensuous lips; and she was self-possessed, refined, and highly-bred.
Educated at Vienna—for Servia was long a province of Austria (after being shuffled backward and forward between the Emperor and the Porte)—she was highly accomplished, according to the European standard, and it was but too evident that she welcomed the advent of Cecil's visit—especially as a young Briton—for the women in Servia are reckoned as being quite inferior to the men, fit only to be the plaything of youth and the nurse of old age; a peculiarity of manners that has not arisen from four centuries of tyrant Turkish rule, but seems to be inherent in old Slavic custom, such as still appertains in Russia. But European ideas and fashions are now the rule at Belgrade, thus the country must change fast; and Margarita had been the reigning beauty when there as a maid of honour to the Princess Natalie, the wife of Milano, and daughter of a wealthy banker in Odessa.