elish
that entry and approach. For him, stilly intent and watchful, it was
as though a voice, the voice which had spoken from the shadowy
doorway, had incarnated itself and become visible, putting on a form
to match its own quality, at once definite and delicate. The newcomer
moved down the room with a subdued rustling of skirts, resolving at
last into a neat and appealing feminine presence that smiled
confidently and yet conciliatorily and offered a hand towards Selby.

"It is the American Consulate, isn't it?" she asked again.

Selby, ruffled like an agitated hen, woke to spasmodic movement, and
took the hand.

"Why, yes," he answered, pushing towards her the chair he had not
offered to Waters and erupting forthwith into uneasy volubility.
"This is it. Sit down, madam; sit right down and tell me what I can
do for you."

The girl, still smiling, took the seat he gave her; across the
desk-top, Waters, unmoving, his battered hand grasping his peaked
Russian cap, gazed upon her absorbedly.

"Just got in, have you?" inquired Selby fussily.

"Yes," she answered. "I got in this morning by the boat from Odessa.
You see, I've come up from Bucharest, and as I don't know very much
about Russia, I thought."

Selby, seated again in his chair of office, his fingers judicially
joined, nodded approvingly. "You just naturally came along to your
consul," he finished for her. "Quite right, Miss, er."

"Pilgrim," supplied the girl.

"Miss Pilgrim?" he hesitated. She nodded. "Well, Miss Pilgrim, if
there's any information I can give you, or assistance, or, or advice,
I'll be very happy to do what I can. You're, er, traveling alone?"

"Yes," she replied, with her little confirming nod.

He had forgotten for the while the mere existence of Waters, brooding
wordlessly over them, and Waters after his manner, had forgotten
everything in the world. The girl between them, sitting unconscious
and tranquil under their converging gaze, had snared their faculties.
She was perhaps twenty-four, and both Selby and Waters, when
afterwards they used to speak of her, always insisted on this, not
pretty. She was fair in a commonplace way, middle-sized and
inconspicuous, the fashion of young woman who goes to compose the
background of life. She raised to the light of the window a face of
creamy pallor, with large serious grey eyes, and lips of a gentle and
serene composure; but it was not these that redeemed her from being
merely negligible a