"It might be," he muttered; "perhaps you will bring me luck; I may still come to be something; and if you then should be as dear and pretty as you are now----" He kissed her upon both eyes.
"Rika!" a shrill voice called from a distance.
"Is that your name?" he asked.
"Yes."
"And what is your last name?"
"My step-father's is Strachinsky. I do not know mine."
"Rika!" the shrill tones sounded nearer.
"And what is your name?" she asked him.
Before he could reply, the fluttering skirts of the English governess came in sight: suddenly aroused to a consciousness of her neglected duties, she was looking along the road for her charge.
The little girl clasped her picture close and fled.