stop education; they want to crush the peasant. They are afraid
of being found out; they live in their grand houses, and support their
grand names on the money they crush out of the starving peasant."

"So do I, so far as that goes."

"Of course you do! And I am your steward--your crusher. We do not deny
it, we boast of it, but we exchange a wink with the angels--eh?"

Alexis rode on in silence for a few moments. He sat his horse as English
foxhunters do--not prettily--and the little animal with erect head and
scraggy neck was evidently worried by the unusual grip on his ribs. For
Russians sit back, with a short stirrup and a loose seat, when they are
travelling. One must not form one's idea of Russian horsemanship from
the erect carriage affected in the Newski Prospect.

"I wish," he said abruptly, "that I had never attempted to do any good;
doing good to mankind doesn't pay. Here I am running away from my own
home as if I were afraid of the police! The position is impossible."

Steinmetz shook his shaggy head.

"No. No position is impossible in this country--except the Czar's--if
one only keeps cool. For men such as you and I any position is quite
easy. But these Russians are too romantic--too exaltes--they give way to
a morbid love of martyrdom: they think they can do no good to mankind
unless they are uncomfortable."

Alexis turned in his saddle and looked keenly into his companion's face.

"Do you know," he said, "I believe you founded the Charity League?"

Steinmetz laughed in his easy, stout way.

"It founded itself," he said; "the angels founded it in heaven. I hope a
committee of them will attend to the eternal misery of the dog who
betrayed it."

"I trust they will, but in the meantime I stick to my opinion that it is
unnecessary for me to leave the country. What have I done? I do not
belong to the League; it is composed entirely of Russian nobles; I don't
admit that I am a Russian noble."

"But," persisted Steinmetz quietly, "you subscribe to the League. Four
hundred thousand rubles--they do not grow at the roadside."

"But the rubles have not my name on them."

"That may be, but we all--_they all_--know where they are likely to come
from. My dear Paul, you cannot keep up the farce any longer. You are not
an English gentleman who comes across here for sporting purposes; you do
not live in the old Castle of Osterno three months in the year because
you have a taste for mediaeval fortresses. You a