t numerous enough for him to lose himself in it, at least it
served him as a shield. He held it for a certainty that the princess
had not recognised him; yet he did not cease feeling in her presence
unutterably ill at ease. This Calmuck visage of hers recalled to him
all the miseries, the shame, the hard, grinding slavery of his youth;
he could not look at her without feeling his brow burn as though it were
being seared with a hot iron.

He entered into conversation with a supercilious, haughty, and pedantic
counsellor-at-law, whose interminable monologues distilled ennui. This
fine speaker seemed charming to Samuel, who found in him wit, knowledge,
scholarship, and taste; he possessed the (in his eyes) meritorious
quality of not knowing Samuel Brohl. For Samuel had come to divide the
human race into two categories: the first comprehended those well-to-do,
thriving people who did not know a certain Brohl; he placed in the
second old women who did know him. He interrogated the counsellor with
deference, he hung upon his words, he smiled with an air of approbation
at all the absurdities that escaped him; he would have been willing to
have his discourse last three hours by the watch; if this charming bore
had shown symptoms of escaping him, he would have held him back by the
button.

Suddenly he heard a harsh voice, saying to Mme. de Lorcy: "Where is
Count Larinski? Bring him to me; I want to have a discussion with him."

He could not do otherwise than comply; he quitted his counsellor with
regret, went over and took a seat in the arm-chair that Mme. de Lorcy
drew up for him at the side of the princess, and which had for him the
effect of a stool of repentance. Mme. de Lorcy moved away, and he was
left _tete-a-tete_ with Princess Gulof, who said to him, "I have been
told that congratulations are due to you, and I must make them at
once--although we are enemies."

"By what right are we enemies, princess?" he asked with a slightly
troubled feeling, which quickly passed away as she answered:

"I am a Russian and you are a Pole, but we shall have no time for
fighting; I leave for London to-morrow morning at seven o'clock."

He was on the point of casting himself at her feet and tenderly kissing
her two hands, in testimony of his gratitude. "To-morrow at seven
o'clock," he mentally ejaculated. "I have slandered her; she has some
good in her."

"When I say that I am a Russian," resumed the princess, "it is merely a
forma