sive and
solitary glass of liqueur.

De Chauxville sat down, stated his requirements to the waiter in a
single word, and offered his companion a cigarette, which Vassili
accepted with the consciousness that it came from a coroneted case.

"I am rather thinking of visiting Russia," said the Frenchman.

"Again," added Vassili, in his quiet voice.

De Chauxville looked up sharply, smiled, and waved the word away with a
gesture of the fingers that held a cigarette.

"If you will--again."

"On private affairs?" enquired Vassili, not so much, it would appear,
from curiosity as from habit. He put the question with the assurance of
one who has a right to know.

De Chauxville nodded acquiescence through the tobacco smoke.

"The bane of public men--private affairs," he said epigrammatically.

But the attache to the Russian Embassy was either too dense or too
clever to be moved to a sympathetic smile by a cheap epigram.

"And M. le Baron wants a passport?" he said, lapsing into the useful
third person, which makes the French language so much more fitted to
social and diplomatic purposes than is our rough northern tongue.

"And more," answered De Chauxville. "I want what you hate parting
with--information."

The man called Vassili leaned back in his chair with a little smile. It
was an odd little smile, which fell over his features like a mask and
completely hid his thoughts. It was apparent that Claude de Chauxville's
tricks of speech and manner fell here on barren ground. The Frenchman's
epigrams, his method of conveying his meaning in a non-committing and
impersonal generality, failed to impress this hearer. The difference
between a Frenchman and a Russian is that the former is amenable to
every outward influence--the outer thing penetrates. The Russian, on the
contrary, is a man who works his thoughts, as it were, from internal
generation to external action. The action, moreover, is demonstrative,
which makes the Russian different from other northern nations of an
older civilization and a completer self-control.

"Then," said Vassili, "if I understand M. le Baron aright, it is a
question of private and personal affairs that suggests this journey
to--Russia?"

"Precisely."

"In no sense a mission?" suggested the other, sipping his liqueur
thoughtfully.

"In no sense a mission. I give you a proof. I have been granted six
months' leave of absence, as you probably know."

"Precisely so, mo' cher Baron." Vassil