“I should like to forget the past altogether,” she said.  “But it is hard for women to get rid of the past.  It is rather terrible to feel that one will be associated all one’s life with a person for whom no one had any respect.  He was not honorable or—­”

She paused; for the intuition of some women is marvellous.  A slight change of countenance had told her that charity, especially toward the dead, is a commendable quality.

“The world,” she went on rather hurriedly, “never makes allowances—­does it?  He was easily led, I suppose.  And people said things of him that were not true.  Did you ever hear of him in Russia—­of the things they said of him?”

She waited for the answer with suppressed eagerness—­a good woman defending the memory of her dead husband—­a fair lioness protecting her cub.

“No; I never hear Russian gossip.  I know no one in St. Petersburg, and few in Moscow.”

She gave a little sigh of relief.

“Then perhaps poor Sydney’s delinquencies have been forgotten,” she said.  “In six months every thing is forgotten now.  He has only been dead six months, you know.  He died in Russia.”

All the while she was watching his face.  She had moved in a circle where everything is known—­where men have faces of iron and nerves of steel to conceal what they know.  She could hardly believe that Paul Alexis knew so little as he pretended.

“So I heard a month ago,” he said.

In a flash of thought Etta remembered that it was only within the last four weeks that this admirer had betrayed his admiration.  Could this be that phenomenon of the three-volume novel, an honorable man?  She looked at him with curiosity—­without, it is to be feared, much respect.

“And now,” she said cheerfully, “let us change the subject.  I have inflicted enough of myself and my affairs upon you for one day.  Tell me about yourself.  Why were you in Russia last summer?”

“I am half a Russian,” he answered.  “My mother was Russian, and I have estates there.”

Her surprise was a triumph of art.

“Oh!  You are not Prince Pavlo Alexis?” she exclaimed.

“Yes, I am.”

She rose and swept him a deep courtesy, to the full advantage of her beautiful figure.

“My respects—­mon prince,” she said; and then, quick as lightning, for she had seen displeasure on his face, she broke into a merry laugh.

“No, I won’t call you that; for I know you hate it.  I have heard of your prejudices, and if it is of the slightest interest to you, I think I rather admire them.”

It is to be presumed that Mrs. Sydney Bamborough’s memory was short.  For it was a matter of common knowledge in the diplomatic circles in which she moved that Mr. Paul Howard Alexis of Piccadilly House, London, and Prince Pavlo Alexis of the province of Tver, were one and the same man.

Having, however, fully established this fact, from the evidence of her own ears, she conversed very pleasantly and innocently upon matters, Russian and English, until other visitors arrived and Paul withdrew.