gain--for Russia."

She looked at the man whom she had never loved, with a great compassion
and pity. She put her arms around him and kissed him, her whole maternal
spirit suddenly aware of him and seeking to comfort him.

At the touch of her lips his body trembled with happiness. But he did
not know that it was a kiss of farewell....

XIII

I have no idea at all what Lawrence did during the early days of that
week. He has never told me, and I have never asked him. He never, with
the single exception of the afternoon at the Astoria, came near the
Markovitches, and I know that was because he had now reached a stage
where he did not dare trust himself to see Vera--just as she at that
time did not trust herself to see him....

I do not know what he thought of those first days of the Revolution. I
can imagine that he took it all very quietly, doing his duty and making
no comment. He had of course his own interest in it, but it would be, I
am sure, an entirely original interest, unlike any one else's. I
remember Dune once, in the long-dead days, saying to me, "It's never any
use guessing what Lawrence is thinking. When you think it's football
it's Euripides, and when you think it's Euripides it's Marie Corelli."
Of all the actors in this affair he remains to me to the last as the
most mysterious. I know that he loved Vera with the endurance of the
rock, the heat of the flame, the ruthlessness of a torrent, but behind
that love there sat the man himself, invisible, silent, patient,
watching.

He may have had Semyonov's contempt for the Revolutionary idealist, he
may have had Wilderling's belief in the Czar's autocracy, he may have
had Boris Grogoff's enthusiasm for freedom and a general holiday. I
don't know. I know nothing at all about it. I don't think that he saw
much of the Wilderlings during the earlier part of the week. He himself
was a great deal with the English Military Mission, and Wilderling was
with _his_ party whatever that might be. He could see of course that
Wilderling was disturbed, or perhaps indignant is the right word. "As
though you know," he said, "some dirty little boy had been pullin'
snooks at him." Nevertheless the Baroness was the human link. Lawrence
would see from the first--that is, from the morning of the Sunday--that
she was in an agony of horror. She confided in nobody, but went about as
though she was watching for something, and at dinner her eyes never left
her husband's face for