“It was I,” he said, “who crushed that very dangerous movement—­the Charity League.”

“I know it.”

“A movement, my dear baron, to educate the moujik, if you please.  To feed him and clothe him, and teach him—­to be discontented with his lot.  To raise him up and make a man of him.  Pah!  He is a beast.  Let him be treated as such.  Let him work.  If he will not work, let him starve and die.”

“The man who cannot contribute toward the support of those above him in life is superfluous,” said De Chauxville glibly.

“Precisely.  Now, my dear baron, listen to me!” The genial Vassili leaned forward and tapped with one finger on the knee of De Chauxville, as if knocking at the door of his attention.

“I am all ears, mon bon monsieur,” replied the Frenchman, rather coldly.  He had just been reflecting that, after all, he did not want any favor from Vassili for the moment, and the manner of the latter was verging on the familiar.

“The woman—­who—­sold—­me—­the Charity League papers dined at my house in Paris—­a fortnight ago,” said Vassili, with a staccato tap on his companion’s knee by way of emphasis to each word.

“Then, my friend, I cannot—­congratulate—­you—­on the society—­in—­which you move,” replied De Chauxville, mimicking his manner.

“Bah!  She was a princess!”

“A princess?”

“Yes, of your acquaintance, M. le Baron!  And she came to my house with her—­eh—­husband—­the Prince Paul Howard Alexis.”

This was news indeed.  De Chauxville leaned back and passed his slim white hand across his brow with a slow pressure, as if wiping some writing from a slate—­as if his forehead bore the writing of his thoughts and he was wiping it away.  And the thoughts he thus concealed—­who can count them?  For thoughts are the quickest and the longest and the saddest things of this life.  The first thought was that if he had known this three months earlier he could have made Etta marry him.  And that thought had a thousand branches.  With Etta for his wife he might have been a different man.  One can never tell what the effect of an acquired desire may be.  One can only judge by analogy, and it would seem that it is a frustrated desire that makes the majority of villains.

But the news coming, thus too late, only served an evil purpose.  For in that flash of thought Claude de Chauxville saw Paul’s secrets given to him; Paul’s wealth meted out to him; Paul in exile; Paul dead in Siberia, where death comes easily; Paul’s widow Claude de Chauxville’s wife.  He wiped all the thoughts away, and showed to Vassili a face that was as composed and impertinent as usual.

“You said ‘her—­eh—­husband,’” he observed.  “Why?  Why did you add that little ‘eh,’ my friend?”

Vassili rose and walked to the door that led through into his bedroom from the salon in which they were sitting.  It was possible to enter the bedroom from another door and overhear any conversation that might be passing in the sitting-room.  The investigation was apparently satisfactory, for the Russian came back.  But he did not sit down.  Instead, he stood leaning against the tall china stove.