mes, for Darvid and his wife preferred that language
to English. Irene and Cara might have been considered as genuine
English. The ready and accurate English; the pure Parisian
French; the varied information, in an atmosphere of light falling
from above on a table glittering with costly plate; the order and
the dignified ornaments of the great hall; the grand scale of
living seemed undoubted high life. There was a moment in which
Darvid cast his glance around and threw back his head somewhat;
his forehead freed itself from wrinkles--smooth, clever, shining
somewhat at the temples--it seemed to be carved out of ivory. His
nostrils, delicate and nervous, expanded and contracted, as if
inhaling, with the odor of wines and delicacies, the more subtle
and intoxicating odor of his own greatness. But this lasted only
a short time; soon certain pebbles of seriousness and breaths of
distraction began to interrupt his conversation and to dull his
clear thought. Balancing in two fingers a dessert knife, he said
to Miss Mary:

"I respect your countrymen greatly for their practical sense and
sound reason. That's a people--that's a people--"

He stammered somewhat now--a thing which, in his low and fluent
speech, never happened. He was thinking of something else.

"That is the nation which said to itself: 'Time is money,' which
also--"

Again he faltered. His eyes, attracted by an invincible power,
turned continually toward that point of the table where black
jets glittered richly and gloomily, and then his lips finished
the judgment which he had begun:

"Which also possesses to-day the greatest money-power."

Here Maryan spoke for the first time:

"Not only money; England now leads the newest tendencies in art."

This was spoken at the edges of his lips, without cooperation of
other parts of his face, which continued fixed; and on Darvid's
lips appeared his smile, of which people said that it bristled
with pins.

"The newest tendencies of art!" repeated he, and the words hissed
in his mouth somewhat. "Art is something splendid, but the pity
is that it is turned into a plaything by wrongly reared
children!"

Maryan raised at his father a look from which a whole flood of
irony rushed forth, and answered, with the edge of his lips:

"He alone is not a child who knows that we are all children,
turning everything into playthings for ourselves. The point is
that there are various playthings."

"Maryan!" whispered Malvina