be a delightfully agreeable guest,
even though he was changed by years and poverty.

And Mirko would be in healthy surroundings; surely it was worth it,
after all!

The taxi drew up in the mean street and she got out, paid the man, and
then knocked at the dingy door.

A slatternly, miserable, little general servant opened it. No, the
foreign gentleman and the little boy were not in, they said they would
be back in a few minutes--would the lady step up and wait? She followed
the lumpy, untidy figure upstairs to a large attic at the top. It was
always let as a studio, apparently. It had a fine northern light from a
big window, and was quite clean, though the wretched furniture spoke of
better days.

Cleanliness was one of Count Sykypri's peculiarities; he always kept
whatever room he was in tidy and clean. This orderly instinct seemed at
variance with all the rest of his easy-going character. It was the
fastidiousness of a gentleman, which never deserted him. Now Zara
recognized the old traveling rug hung on two easels, to hide the little
iron beds where he and Mirko slept. The new wonder, which would be bound
to sell, was begun there on a third easel. It did not look extremely
promising at its present stage. Mirko's violin and his father's, in
their cases, were on a chair beside a small pile of music; the water-jug
had in it a bunch of yellow chrysanthemums probably bought off a barrow.

The Countess Shulski had been through many vicissitudes with these two
since her husband's death, but seldom--only once perhaps--had they gone
down to such poverty-stricken surroundings. Generally it was some small
apartment in Paris, or Florence, that they occupied, with rather scanty
meals when the end of the quarter came. During Count Shulski's life she
had always either lived in some smart villa at Nice, or led a wandering
existence in hotels; and for months at a time, in later years, when he
disappeared, upon his own pleasures bent, he would leave her in some old
Normandy farmhouse, only too thankful to be free from his hateful
presence. Here Mimo and Mirko would join her, and while they painted and
played, she would read. Her whole inner life was spent with books. Among
the shady society her husband had frequented she had been known as "The
Stone." She never unbent, and while her beauty and extraordinary type
attracted all the men she came across they soon gave up their pursuit.
She was quite hopeless, they said--and half-wit