ath, were instantly
shut out. An odor of flowers and fine shrubs permeated the apartment.
The air was cool and clear as though it had passed through a lattice of
ice.

"Please to wait one moment, Kennedy, and I will go to Mr. Gessner. He
expects us and we shall not have long to wait. Is he not in the library,
Fellows--ah, I thought he would be there."

The young butler said "Yes, sir;" but Alban perceived that it was in a
tone which implied some slight note of contempt. "That fellow," he
thought, "would have kicked me into the street if I had called here
yesterday--and his father, I suppose, kept a public-house or a fish
shop." The reflection flattered his sense of irony; and sitting
negligently upon a broad settee, he studied the hall closely, its
wonderful panelling, the magnificently carved balustrades, the great
organ up there in the gallery--and lastly the portraits. Alban liked
subject pictures, and these masterpieces of Sargent and Luke Fildes did
not make an instantaneous appeal to him. Indeed, he had cast but a brief
glance upon the best of them before his eye fell upon a picture which
brought the blood to his cheeks as though a hand had slapped them. It
was the portrait of the supposed Polish girl whom he had seen upon the
balcony of the house in St. James' Square--last night as he visited the
caves.

Alban stared at the picture open-mouthed and so lost in amazement that
all other interests of his visit were instantly lost to his memory. A
hard dogmatic common-sense could make little of a coincidence so
amazing. If he had wished to think that the unknown resembled little
Lois Boriskoff--if he had wished so much last night, the portrait, seen
in this dim light, flattered his desire amazingly. He knew, however,
that the resemblance was chiefly one of nationality; and in the same
instant he remembered that he had been brought to the house of a Pole.
Was it possible, might he dare to imagine that Paul Boriskoff's
friendship had contrived this strange adventure. Some excitement
possessed him at the thought, for his spirit had ever been adventurous.
He could not but ask himself to whose house had he come then and for
what ends? And why did he find a portrait of the Polish girl therein?

Alban's eyes were still fixed upon the picture when the young butler
returned to summon him to the library. He was not a little ashamed to be
found intent upon such an occupation, and he rose immediately and
followed the man thr