ak to her, but from that night he made up his mind. Rozanov's
party may be said to have been really the turning-point of his life. It
was the night that he came out of his shell, grew up, faced the
world--and it was the night that he discovered that he cared about Nina.

The vision of her poor little tired face, her "rather dirty white
dress," her "grown-up" hair, her timidity and her loneliness, never left
him for a moment. All the time that I thought he was occupied only with
the problem of Markovitch and Semyonov, he was much more deeply occupied
with Nina. So unnaturally secretive can young men be!

At last he decided on a plan. He chose the Monday, the day of the Bourse
meeting, because he fancied that Grogoff would be present at that and he
might therefore catch Nina alone, and because he and his
fellow-propagandists would be expected also at the meeting and he would
therefore be free of his office earlier on that afternoon. He had no
idea at all how he would get into the flat, but he thought that fortune
would be certain to favour him. He always thought that.

Well, fortune did. He left the office and arrived in the Gagarinskaya
about half-past five in the evening. He walked about a little, and then
saw a bearded tall fellow drive up in an Isvostchick. He recognised this
man as Lenin, the soul of the anti-Government party, and a man who was
afterwards to figure very prominently in Russia's politics. This fellow
argued very hotly with the Isvostchick about his fare, then vanished
through the double doors. Bohun followed him. Outside Grogoff's flat
Lenin waited and rang the bell. Bohun waited on the floor below; then,
when he heard the door open, he noiselessly slipped up the stairs, and,
as Lenin entered, followed behind him whilst the old servant's back was
turned helping Lenin with his coat. He found, as he had hoped, a crowd
of cloaks and a Shuba hanging beside the door in the dark corner of the
wall. He crept behind these. He heard Lenin say to the servant that,
after all, he would not take off his coat, as he was leaving again
immediately. Then directly afterwards Grogoff came into the hall.

That was the moment of crisis. Did Grogoff go to the rack for his coat
and all was over; a very unpleasant scene must follow--a ludicrous
expulsion, a fling or two at the amiable habits of thieving and deceit
on the part of the British nation, and any hope of seeing Nina ruined
perhaps for ever. Worst of all, the ignom