didn't cringe like her husband. As
I sat there, sipping my tea, and chatting with her, I little guessed
what would befall the comfortable, homely, good-tempered old lady a very
few days hence. Mishka listened in disapproving silence to our
interchange of badinage, and, when our hostess retreated, he entered on
a grumbling protest.

"You are very indiscreet," he grunted. "Why do you want to chatter with
a thing like that?"

He jerked his pipe towards the doorway; Mishka despised the cigarette
which, to every other Russian I have met, seems as necessary to life as
the air he breathes; and when he hadn't a cigar fell back on a
distinctly malodorous briar.

"Why in thunder shouldn't I talk to her?" I demanded. "She's the only
creature I've heard laugh since I got back into Holy Russia; it cheers
one up a bit, even to look at her!"

"You are a fool," was his complimentary retort. "And she is
another--like all women--or she would know these are no days for
laughter. But, I tell you once more, you cannot be too cautious. You
must remember that you know no Russian. You are only an American who has
come to help the prince while away his time of exile by trying to turn
the Zostrov _moujiks_ into good farmers. That, in itself, is a form of
madness, of course, but doubtless they think it may keep him out of more
dangerous mischief."

"Who are 'they'? I wish you'd be a bit more explicit," I remonstrated.
He did make me angry sometimes.

"That is not my business," he answered stolidly. "My business is to obey
orders, and one of those is to bring you safely to Zostrov."

I could not see how my innocent conversation with the fat Jewish
housewife could endanger the safety of either of us; but I had already
learned that it was quite useless to argue with Mishka; so, adopting
Brer Fox's tactics, "I lay low and said nuffin." We smoked in silence
for some minutes, while I mused over the strangeness of my position. I
had determined to return to Russia in search of Anne; had hailed
Mishka's intervention, seized on the opportunity provided by the Grand
Duke's invitation, as if they were God-sent. And yet here I was,
seemingly even farther from news of her than I had been in England,
playing my part as a helpless pawn in a game that I did not understand
in the least.

The landlord entered presently, and obsequiously beckoned Mishka to the
far end of the room, where they held a whispered conversation, which I
tried not to listen to,