318 BY ORDER OF THE CZAR.

wretched General Petronovitch and Philip, a rivalry which we shall hear more of. The Princess Radna, I am told, intends to obtain a divorce j she will lay her case before the Czar himself."

" Does it strike you at all," asked Walter, for the first time turning towards his wife and neglecting his cigarette, u that this General Petronovitch may have met with foul play?"

" No ; why should it? This is not ancient Venice. What foul play could possibly happen to him, except the foul play that is evidently part of his character ; the foul play of a reprobate ? "

" And Philip ? " continued Walter, interrogatively ; " you arc quite satisfied in your own mind that he is under no restraint, that he left us voluntarily, and is away for his own wicked purposes ? "

"I only know," Jenny replied, "that his conduct at the countess' reception was shameful ; that his manner towards the hostess was that of a weak fool under the fascinations of a designing woman ; that his withdrawal from our society the next day, and his appearance with the Countess Stravensky in her ostentatious gondola, are a sufficient justification of what we have thought desirable in the interest of Dolly."

" But you didn't see him, my dear, in the gondola."

"Beppodid," she replied, "and Beppo saw the boat turn into the little canal,, which has a side entrance into the palace where she gave her very mixed and Bohemian reception.

" You thought differently of the reception, my dear, when she invited us, and were tremendously impressed with it until "

" Philip made a fool of himself," exclaimed Jenny, interrupting her argumentative lord ; " and why you will go on repeating a!l this, and come back to it as if we were discussing it now for the first time, and had not sat up