He led her straight through the drawing-room to the suite of rooms which were hers.  These consisted of an ante-room, a small drawing-room, and her private apartments beyond.

Paul stopped in the drawing-room, looking round with a simple satisfaction in all that had been done by his orders for Etta’s comfort.

“These,” he said, “are your rooms.”

He was no adept at turning a neat phrase—­at reeling off a pretty honeymoon welcome.  Perhaps he expected her to express delight, to come to him, possibly, and kiss him, as some women would have done.

She looked round critically.

“Yes,” she said, “they are very nice.”

She crossed the room and drew aside the curtain that covered the double-latticed windows.  The room was so warm that there was no rime on the panes.  She gave a little shudder, and he went to her side, putting his strong, quiet arm around her.

Below them, stretching away beneath the brilliant moonlight, lay the country that was his inheritance, an estate as large as a large English county.  Immediately beneath them, at the foot of the great rock upon which the castle was built, nestled the village of Osterno—­straggling, squalid.

“Oh!” she said dully, “this is Siberia; this is terrible!”

It had never presented itself to him in that light, the wonderful stretch of country over which they were looking.

“It is not so bad,” he said, “in the daylight.”

And that was all; for he had no persuasive tongue.

“That is the village,” he went on, after a little pause.  “Those are the people who look to us to help them in their fight against terrible odds.  I hoped—­that you would be interested in them.”

She looked down curiously at the little wooden huts, half-buried in the snow; the smoking chimneys; the twinkling, curtainless windows.

“What do you expect me to do?” she asked in a queer voice.

He looked at her in a sort of wonderment.  Perhaps it seemed to him that a woman should have no need to ask such a question.

“It is a long story,” he said; “I will tell you about it another time.  You are tired now, after your journey.”

His arm slipped from her waist.  They stood side by side.  And both were conscious of a feeling of difference.  They were not the same as they had been in London.  The atmosphere of Russia seemed to have had some subtle effect upon them.

Etta turned and sat slowly down on a low chair before the fire.  She had thrown her furs aside, and they lay in a luxurious heap on the floor.  The maids, hearing that the prince and princess were together, waited silently in the next room behind the closed door.

“I think I had better hear it now,” said Etta.

“But you are tired,” protested her husband.  “You had better rest until dinner-time.”

“No; I am not tired.”

He came toward her and stood with one elbow on the mantel-piece, looking down at her—­a quiet, strong man, who had already forgotten his feat of endurance of a few hours earlier.