was simplicity itself, and inasmuch as her servants had found time during the hours since their arrival, to decorate the rooms according to the princess' tastes, she was surrounded by much the same settings that would have been contained in her own palatial home at St. Petersburg. When it is said that she was barely twenty-five in years; that her father had been a Spanish nobleman in the diplomatic service at the Russian capital, and that her mother was of royal birth, we have an explanation for the exquisitely fascinating and almost voluptuous qualities of her beauty, as well as for her royal manner of command. 

 She did not leave her chair when this man was taken into her presence, but extended one small and perfectly formed hand upon which gleamed a solitary ring; the only jewel she wore that afternoon save a small pin in the lace at her throat, which was fashioned precisely after the same pattern as the ring. 

 The man lost no time in raising that beautiful hand to his lips, and he bowed low over it, with a courtly grace as distinguished in its gesture, as was her reception of him. One wondered why such a man as this had been contented to endure five idle hours of waiting upon her serene pleasure; and yet if one had looked past him to her, one might have ceased to wonder, and have thought a lifetime of waiting would be as nothing, if possession of her at the end of it could be its reward. 

 "It was kind of you to come to me so quickly after my arrival," she said to him in a low voice that was perfectly modulated. 

 "It was kinder of you to receive me, princess," he responded, stepping back again to the center of the room and standing tall and straight—before her in his commanding manhood. He was a handsome man, past fifty, distinguished, and like the princess he greeted, had about him the unquestionable air of authority. 

 "I am afraid I kept you waiting." 

 "One does not consider moments of waiting, if Princess Zara be the object of it," he retorted, smiling. 

 "Won't you be seated?" 

 "Thank you; yes." 

 He drew a chair forward so that they sat nearly facing each other across a low table upon which many of the princess' personal effects had already been arranged. Among them was a box of Russian cigarettes which she now indicated by a gesture, while with a smile which lighted her face wonderfully and gave to it that 

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