At length Paul caught sight of a graceful figure, robed in the silver-gray habit of a nun, standing solitary by the entrance of a corridor leading from the ball-room.
He watched and saw her with a pretty shake of her head repel in silence the addresses of three cavaliers in succession.
As Paul drew near, the lady suddenly turned her head and flashed a glance at him through the eyelet-holes of her black silk vizard. That glance was sufficient, and in another moment he was by her side.
"Fair lady," he whispered, "why this sad costume?"
"Is it not the garb of innocence?" returned the lady in a low and obviously disguised voice.
"True, but it is also the negation of love."
"Because you would be gainsaying the vows you made to me in the old Greek temple."
"Ah, Paul! you have discovered me," she whispered, her lips smiling beneath the lace of her mask. "Now I, in turn, will ask, 'Why this old Polish costume?'"
"I adopted what I thought would most please you."
"And it does please me," she replied with a tender light in her eyes. "And it is suitable to the character of the revelation you shall hear to-night. Come, we will not dance just yet. Take me to the gardens, to the Long Terrace."
Conscious of something odd in her manner, Paul, drawing her arm within his own, conducted Barbara from the brilliant ball-room to the quieter scene without, and on reaching a retired corner of the marble terrace, he seated her beside himself.
It was a lovely midsummer night. The air was pure and temperate, and alive with the plash and sparkle of numerous fountains. The silver orb of the moon, set in a dark-blue sky, and the colored lamps gleaming everywhere among the foliage combined to produce a poetical glamor that might have gladdened the eyes even of Titania herself, the Queen of Fairyland.
"Who could have thought," said Paul, after complimenting Barbara upon the admirable manner in which she had out-manoeuvred the Russian envoy, "who could have thought when we first met in that Dalmatian forest that a great empire would one day demand my extradition, and that you would bravely refuse to grant it!"
"And I will not surrender you, Paul. No, not if it should cost me my throne."
How sweet it was to hear such words from this fair princess! She who was a match for the Czar's envoy to set such store by him! This maiden pressing tenderly to his side scarcely seemed to be the same person who that morning had filled a throne with such dignity. Nor was she. Love had entirely transfigured her.