“I am rather thinking of visiting Russia,” said the Frenchman.
“Again,” added Vassili, in his quiet voice.
De Chauxville looked up sharply, smiled, and waved the word away with a gesture of the fingers that held a cigarette.
“If you will—again.”
“On private affairs?” enquired Vassili, not so much, it would appear, from curiosity as from habit. He put the question with the assurance of one who has a right to know.
De Chauxville nodded acquiescence through the tobacco smoke.
“The bane of public men—private affairs,” he said epigrammatically.
But the attaché to the Russian Embassy was either too dense or too clever to be moved to a sympathetic smile by a cheap epigram.
“And M. le Baron wants a passport?” he said, lapsing into the useful third person, which makes the French language so much more fitted to social and diplomatic purposes than is our rough northern tongue.
“And more,” answered De Chauxville. “I want what you hate parting with—information.”
The man called Vassili leaned back in his chair with a little smile. It was an odd little smile, which fell over his features like a mask and completely hid his thoughts. It was apparent that Claude de Chauxville’s tricks of speech and manner fell here on barren ground. The Frenchman’s epigrams, his method of conveying his meaning in a non-committing and impersonal generality, failed to impress this hearer. The difference between a Frenchman and a Russian is that the former is amenable to every outward influence—the outer thing penetrates. The Russian, on the contrary, is a man who works his thoughts, as it were, from internal generation to external action. The action, moreover, is demonstrative, which makes the Russian different from other northern nations of an older civilization and a completer self-control.
“Then,” said Vassili, “if I understand M. le Baron aright, it is a question of private and personal affairs that suggests this journey to—Russia?”
“Precisely.”
“In no sense a mission?” suggested the other, sipping his liqueur thoughtfully.
“In no sense a mission. I give you a proof. I have been granted six months’ leave of absence, as you probably know.”
“Precisely so, mo’ cher Baron.” Vassili had a habit of applying to everyone the endearing epithet, which lost a consonant somewhere in his mustache. “When a military officer is granted a six months’ leave, it is exactly then that we watch him.”
De Chauxville shrugged his shoulders in deprecation, possibly with contempt for any system of watching.
“May one call it an affaire de coeur?” asked Vassili, with his grim smile.
“Certainly. Are not all private affairs such, one way or the other?”
“And you want a passport?”
“Yes—a special one.”
“I will see what I can do.”
“Thank you.”
Vassili emptied his glass, drew in his feet, and glanced at the clock.
“But that is not all I want,” said De Chauxville.
“So I perceive.”
“I want you to tell me what you know of Prince Pavlo Alexis.”
“Of Tver?”
“Of Tver. What you know from your point of view, you understand, my dear Vassili. Nothing political, nothing incriminating, nothing official. I only want a few social details.”
Again the odd smile fell over the dignified face.
“In case,” said Vassili, rather slowly, “I should only impart to you stale news and valueless details with which you are already acquainted, I must ask you to tell me first what you know—from your point of view.”
“Certainly,” answered De Chauxville, with engaging frankness. “The man I know slightly is the sort of thing that Eton and Oxford turn out by the dozen. Well dressed, athletic, silent, a thorough gentleman—et voilà tout.”
The face of Vassili expressed something remarkably like disbelief.
“Ye—es,” he said slowly.
“And you?” suggested De Chauxville.
“You leave too much to my imagination,” said Vassili. “You relate mere facts—have you no suppositions, no questions in your mind about the man?”
“I want to know what his purpose in life may be. There is a purpose—one sees it in his face. I want also to know what he does with his spare time; he must have much to dispose of in England.”
Vassili nodded, and suddenly launched into detail.
“Prince Pavlo Alexis,” he said, “is a young man who takes a full and daring advantage of his peculiar position. He defies many laws in a quiet, persistent way which impresses the smaller authorities and to a certain extent paralyzes them. He was in the Charity League—deeply implicated. He had a narrow escape. He was pulled through by the cleverest man in Russia.”
“Karl Steinmetz?”
“Yes,” answered Vassili behind the rigid smile; “Karl Steinmetz.”
“And that,” said De Chauxville, watching the face of his companion, “is all you can tell me?”
“To be quite frank with you,” replied the man who had never been quite frank in his life, “that is all I want to tell you.”
De Chauxville lighted a cigarette, with exaggerated interest in the match.
“Paul is a friend of mine,” he said calmly. “I may be staying at Osterno with him.”
The rigid smile never relaxed.
“Not with Karl Steinmetz on the premises,” said Vassili imperturbably.
“The astute Mr. Steinmetz may be removed to some other sphere of usefulness. There is a new spoke in his Teutonic wheel.”
“Ah!”
“Prince Paul is about to marry—the widow of Sydney Bamborough.”
“Sydney Bamborough,” repeated Vassili musingly, with a perfect expression of innocence on his well-cut face. “I have heard that name before.”
De Chauxville laughed quietly, as if in appreciation of a pretty trick which he knew as well as its performer.
“She is a friend of mine.”
The attaché, as he was pleased to call himself, to the Russian Embassy, leant his arms on the table, bending forward and bringing his large, fleshy face within a few inches of De Chauxville’s keen countenance.
“That makes all the difference,” he said.
“I thought it would,” answered De Chauxville, meeting the steady gaze firmly.
XV
In a Winter City
St. Petersburg under snow is the most picturesque city in the world. The town is at its best when a high wind has come from the north to blow all
