Cyril retired, well content. He had secured what was of the greatest moment to him, an invitation to continue his visits to the villa after Philippa had quitted it on the morrow. When he had left her, the Princess sat for some time musing deeply.
“I cannot be sure,” she murmured at last. “It is true that he seems to have no feeling for Ernestine but that of dislike—certainly he does not love her at this moment—but one can never tell. They might meet, and the sight of her might revive all the old feelings. Those caressing ways of hers!—and he is just the man to take a whimsical pleasure in her perpetual inconsistency. How is he to be tested? for I dare not risk anything until I am sure of him. He and I, reigning in Palestine! Palestine? we would rule the world. How I should triumph over Alexis and Bettine and the Powers! But there is always Ernestine in the background. How am I to be rid of the fear of her? Ah, that photograph! That will do what I want. He comes again, say, in a week; there will be time to have it enlarged. Birnsdorf!” she raised her voice, and the Countess entered, “I want you to write a letter to Vindobona for me at once.”
CHAPTER VII.
BREAKING WITH THE PAST.
A week had passed since Philippa’s departure from the villa before she entered it again, accompanied by her uncle, to spend the day with Princess Lida. Cyril’s presence had not been sought by his niece. In fact, poor Philippa, terrified lest she should be helping to involve him in the toils of the Princess of Dardania, had assured him plainly, almost rudely, that she preferred to go by herself. But Cyril could be singularly dense when he chose. He insisted that he had nothing particular to do, and could find no more delightful employment for an idle hour than escorting his niece to the villa. This assurance only confirmed Philippa’s fears, and the crowning touch was put to her misery by the message which awaited Cyril on his entrance, that the Princess would be glad to see him if he could spare her a few minutes. Philippa cast an imploring glance at him, but he smiled wickedly at the sight of her woe-begone face, and followed the servant sent to conduct him to the Princess’s boudoir.
“Some dodge on hand,” he muttered to himself, when the man had left him with the announcement that her Royal Highness would receive him in a short time. “I wonder what it is? Ah!”
His eye had been caught by an unfamiliar object in the room, a large portrait on an easel, carelessly draped with a gold and crimson scarf. It was turned away from him, and he went round the easel to look at it, only to recoil with a start which even his self-control could not restrain. The gay hues of the drapery served only to accentuate the utter desolation revealed by the photograph. A woman, dressed in white, was sitting listlessly upon a block of stone, her hands clasped loosely in her lap. The portrait revealed with cruel distinctness the grey hair, the lines in the worn face, and the unfathomable sorrow in the hopeless eyes. The Princess had given special directions that the reproduction was to be a faithful, not a flattering, one.
“Good heavens!” broke from Cyril under his breath, “and this is Ernestine!”
The wild rush of remorse and pity almost made him stagger, as he stood with clenched hands and compressed lip before the portrait; but it was succeeded by a vehement indignation against the woman who had deliberately prepared this miserable shock for him. “I showed you little mercy when last we met, dearest,” he muttered, addressing the pictured Ernestine; “but she shall have none.”
The sound of his own voice recalled him to himself, and before the faint frou-frou of the Princess’s silk-lined robes, sweeping over the polished floor, announced her approach, he had had time to compose his features, and to adopt an attitude of interest, not untouched with criticism, as he stood before the portrait. The Princess came rustling in, exquisitely dressed (during the past week she had mitigated the severity of her weeds in various scarcely perceptible ways, which caused the general effect to be considerably less sombre), graceful and gracious, with the utmost made of every good point in face and figure. Truth to tell, her mood at the moment was not of the most tranquil. It had been no part of her plan that Cyril should be left alone with the portrait of his old love. She had intended to confront him with it unexpectedly, and to scrutinise with jealous minuteness the effect it produced upon him, but the stupidity of the footman had prevented this. If she felt any anxiety as to the result of her experiment, she did not betray it, however. Her whole manner was expressive of a superb confidence in her own power to charm, as compared with the faded and unhappy woman in the photograph. As she entered, Cyril turned towards her with a start, letting his eye-glass drop from his hand.
“Pardon me, madame,” he said hastily, without waiting for her to speak first, “but I cannot help tracing in this portrait some resemblance to the features of my august mistress, Queen Ernestine. Surely it is not possible that the photograph is hers?”