he could grasp the notion of their cruelty. The
Assistant Commissioner remembered very well the conversation between
these two. He had listened in silence. It was something as exciting in
a way, and even touching in its foredoomed futility, as the efforts at
moral intercourse between the inhabitants of remote planets. But this
grotesque incarnation of humanitarian passion appealed somehow, to one's
imagination. At last Michaelis rose, and taking the great lady's
extended hand, shook it, retained it for a moment in his great cushioned
palm with unembarrassed friendliness, and turned upon the semi-private
nook of the drawing-room his back, vast and square, and as if distended
under the short tweed jacket. Glancing about in serene benevolence, he
waddled along to the distant door between the knots of other visitors.
The murmur of conversations paused on his passage. He smiled innocently
at a tall, brilliant girl, whose eyes met his accidentally, and went out
unconscious of the glances following him across the room. Michaelis'
first appearance in the world was a success--a success of esteem unmarred
by a single murmur of derision. The interrupted conversations were
resumed in their proper tone, grave or light. Only a well-set-up,
long-limbed, active-looking man of forty talking with two ladies near a
window remarked aloud, with an unexpected depth of feeling: "Eighteen
stone, I should say, and not five foot six. Poor fellow! It's
terrible--terrible."

The lady of the house, gazing absently at the Assistant Commissioner,
left alone with her on the private side of the screen, seemed to be
rearranging her mental impressions behind her thoughtful immobility of a
handsome old face. Men with grey moustaches and full, healthy, vaguely
smiling countenances approached, circling round the screen; two mature
women with a matronly air of gracious resolution; a clean-shaved
individual with sunken cheeks, and dangling a gold-mounted eyeglass on a
broad black ribbon with an old-world, dandified effect. A silence
deferential, but full of reserves, reigned for a moment, and then the
great lady exclaimed, not with resentment, but with a sort of protesting
indignation:

"And that officially is supposed to be a revolutionist! What nonsense."
She looked hard at the Assistant Commissioner, who murmured
apologetically:

"Not a dangerous one perhaps."

"Not dangerous--I should think not indeed. He is a mere believer. It's
the