ck at
each corner. There was Washington--then Lincoln--then a copy of
Leonardo's Jesus in the Last Supper fresco--and a fourth face, bearded,
powerful, imperious, yet wonderfully kind and good humored--a face she
did not know. Pointing her riding stick at it she said:

"And who is that?"

With a quick but not in the least a startled movement the girl at the
table straightened her form, turned in her chair, saying, as she did
so, without having seen the pointing stick:

"That is Marx--Karl Marx."

Jane was so astonished by the face she was now seeing--the face of the
girl--that she did not hear the reply. The girl's hair and skin had
reminded her of what Martha had told her about the Jewish, or
half-Jewish, origin of Selma Gordon. Thus, she assumed that she would
see a frankly Jewish face. Instead, the face looking at her from
beneath the wealth of thick black hair, carelessly parted near the
centre, was Russian--was Cossack--strange and primeval, intense, dark,
as superbly alive as one of those exuberant tropical flowers that seem
to cry out the mad joy of life. Only, those flowers suggest the
evanescent, the flame burning so fiercely that it must soon burn out,
while this Russian girl declared that life was eternal. You could not
think of her as sick, as old, as anything but young and vigorous and
vivid, as full of energy as a healthy baby that kicks its dresses into
rags and wears out the strength of its strapping nurse. Her nose was
as straight as Jane's own particularly fine example of nose. Her dark
gray eyes, beneath long, slender, coal black lines of brow, were
brimming with life and with fun. She had a wide, frank, scarlet mouth;
her teeth were small and sharp and regular, and of the strong and
healthy shade of white. She had a very small, but a very resolute
chin. With another quick, free movement she stood up. She was indeed
small, but formed in proportion. She seemed out of harmony with her
linen dress. She looked as if she ought to be careening on the steppes
in some romantic, half-savage costume. Jane's first and instant
thought was, "There's not another like her in the whole world. She's
the only living specimen of her kind."

"Gracious!" exclaimed Jane. "But you ARE healthy."

The smile took full advantage of the opportunity to broaden into a
laugh. A most flattering expression of frank, childlike admiration
came into the dark gray eyes. "You're not sickly, yourself," replied
S