liar with such scenes, Warsaw offered no
surprises whatever. To Alban it remained a city of whirlwind, and of
human strife and suffering beyond all imagination terrible. He would
have been content to remain out there upon that high balcony until the
last trooper had ridden from the street and the last bitter cry been
raised. The Count's invitation to dinner seemed grotesque in its
reversion to commonplace affairs.

"All this is an every-day affair here now," that young man remarked with
amazing nonchalance; "since the workmen began to shoot the patrols, the
city has had no peace. I see that it interests you very much. You will
find it less amusing when you have been in Russia for a month or two.
Now let us dress and dine while we can. Those vultures down below will
not leave a bone of the carcass if we don't take care."

He re-entered the sitting-room and thence the two passed to their
respective dressing-rooms. An obsequious valet offered Alban a cigarette
while he made his bath, and served a glass of an American cocktail. The
superb luxury of these apartments did not surprise the young English boy
as much as they might have done, for he had already stayed one night at
an almost equally luxurious hotel in Berlin and so approached them
somewhat familiarly; but the impression, oddly conceived and incurable,
that he had no right to enjoy such luxuries and was in some way an
intruder, remained. No one would have guessed this, the silent valet
least of all; but in truth, Alban dressed shyly, afraid of the splendor
and the richness; and his feet fell softly upon the thick Persian
carpets as though some one would spy him out presently and cry, "Here is
the guest who has not the wedding garment." In the dining-room, face to
face with the gay Count, some of these odd ideas vanished; so that an
observer might have named them material rather than personal.

They dined with open windows, taking a zakuska in the Russian fashion in
lieu of hors d'oeuvre, and nibbling at smoked fish, caviar and other
pickled mysteries. The Count's ability to drink three or four glasses of
liquor with this prefatory repast astonished Alban not a little--which
the young Russian observed and remarked upon.

"I am glad that I was born in the East," he said lightly, "you English
have no digestions. When you have them, your climate ruins them. Here in
Russia we eat and drink what we please--that is our compensation. We are
Tartars, I admit--but when you