I have Madame's interests at heart. Now, the chief matters of
dispute here are----"

Truda interrupted him. "Please!" she said. "It does not matter at
all. And think! Politics before breakfast. I am surprised at you,
Monsieur Vaucher."

The little man shrugged. "It is as Madame pleases," he said.
"However, here we are at the station; I will go to make all ready."

Truda had a wide experience of strange towns, and preserved yet some
interest in making their acquaintance. At that early hour the streets
were sparsely peopled; the city was still at its toilet. A swift
carriage, manned by a bulky coachman of that spacious degree of
fatness which is fashionable in Russia, bore her to her hotel along
wide monotonous ways, flanked with dull buildings. It was all very
prosaic, very void of character; it did not at all engage her
thoughts, and it was in weariness that she gained her rooms and
disposed herself for a day of rest before the evening's task.

Another woman might have gathered depression and the weakness of
melancholy from this dullness of arrival, following on the dullness
of travel; but a great actress is made on other lines. A large
audience was gathered in the theatre that night to make acquaintance
with her, for her coming was an event of high importance. Only one
box was empty--that of the Governor of the city, a Russian Prince
whom Truda had met before; it was understood that he was away, and
could not return till the following day.

But for the rest the house was full; its expectancy made itself felt
like an atmosphere till the curtain went up and the play began to
shape itself. Audiences, like other assemblies of people, have their
racial characteristics; it was the task of Truda to get the range, as
it were--to find the measure of their understanding; and before the
first act was over she had their sympathy. The rest was but the
everyday routine of the stage, that grotesque craft wherein delicate
emotions are handled like crowbars, and only the crude colors of life
are visible. It was a success--even a great success, and nobody save
Truda had an inkling that there was yet something to discover in the
soul of a Russian audience.

At her coming forth, the square was thick with people under the
lights, and those nearest the stage-door cheered her as she passed to
her carriage. But Truda was learned in the moods of crowds, and in
her reception she detected a perfunctory note, as though the people
who wave