London. He found himself called upon to shake hands a l'anglais
with this one and that, giving all and sundry his impressions of the
perfidious Albion with a verve and neatness truly French. He went from
one to the other with perfect grace and savoir-faire, and each change of
position brought him nearer to the middle-aged man with upturned
mustache, upon whom his movements were by no means lost.

Finally De Chauxville bumped against the object of his quest--possibly,
indeed, the object of his presence at the Concours Hippique. He turned
with a ready apology.

"Ah!" he exclaimed; "the very man I was desiring to see."

The individual known as "ce Vassili"--a term of mingled contempt and
distrust--bowed very low. He was a plain commoner, while his
interlocutor was a baron. The knowledge of this was subtly conveyed in
his bow.

"How can I serve M. le Baron?" he enquired in a voice which was
naturally loud and strong, but had been reduced by careful training to a
tone inaudible at the distance of a few paces.

"By following me to the Cafe Tantale in ten minutes," answered De
Chauxville, passing on to greet a lady who was bowing to him with the
labored grace of a Parisienne.

Vassili merely bowed and stood upright again. There was something in his
attitude of quiet attention, of unobtrusive scrutiny and retiring
intelligence, vaguely suggestive of the police--something which his
friends refrained from mentioning to him; for this Vassili was a
dignified man, of like susceptibilities with ourselves, and justly proud
of the fact that he belonged to the Corps Diplomatique. What position he
occupied in that select corporation he never vouchsafed to define. But
it was known that he enjoyed considerable emoluments, while he was never
called upon to represent his country or his emperor in any official
capacity. He was attached, he said, to the Russian Embassy. His enemies
called him a spy; but the world never puts a charitable construction on
that of which it only has a partial knowledge.

In ten minutes Claude de Chauxville left the Concours Hippique. In the
Champs Elysees he turned to the left, up toward the Bois du Boulogne;
turned to the left again, and took one of the smaller paths that lead to
one or other of the sequestered and somewhat select cafes on the south
side of the Champs Elysees.

At the Cafe Tantale--not in the garden, for it was winter, but in the
inner room--he found the man called Vassili consuming a pen