He mentioned several well-known Muscovite names, and she broke into a sudden laugh.

“How terrible they sound,” she said gayly, “even to me, and I have been to Petersburg.  But you speak Russian, Mr. Alexis?”

“Yes,” he answered.  “And you?”

She shook her head and gave a little sigh.

“I?  Oh, no.  I am not at all clever, I am afraid.”

CHAPTER IV

DON QUIXOTE

Paul had been five months in England when he met Mrs. Sydney Bamborough.  Since his hurried departure from Tver a winter had come and gone, leaving its mark as winters do.  It left a very distinct mark on Russia.  It was a famine winter.  From the snow-ridden plains that lie to the north of Moscow, Karl Steinmetz had written piteous descriptions of an existence which seemed hardly worth the living.  But each letter had terminated with a prayer, remarkably near to a command, that he, Paul Howard Alexis, should remain in England.  So Paul stayed in London, where he indulged to the full a sadly mistaken hobby.  This man had, as we have seen, that which is called a crank, or a loose screw, according to the fancy of the speaker.  He had conceived the absurd idea of benefiting his fellow-beings, and of turning into that mistaken channel the surplus wealth that was his.  This, moreover, if it please you, without so much as forming himself into a society.

This is an age of societies, and, far from concealing from the left hand the good which the right may be doing, we publish abroad our charities on all hands.  We publish in a stout volume our names and donations.  We even go so far as to cultivate an artificial charity by meat and drink and speeches withal.  When we have eaten and drunk, the plate is handed round, and from the fulness of our heart we give abundantly.  We are cunning even in our well-doing.  We do not pass round the plate until the decanters have led the way.  And thus we degrade that quality of the human heart which is the best of all.

But Paul Howard Alexis had the good fortune to be rich out of England, and that roaring lion of modern days, organized charity, passed him by.  He was thus left to evolve from his own mind a mistaken sense of his duty toward his neighbor.  That there were thousands of well-meaning persons in black and other coats ready to prove to him that revenues gathered from Russia should be spent in the East End or the East Indies, goes without saying.  There are always well-meaning persons among us ready to direct the charity of others.  We have all met those virtuous persons who do good by proxy.  But Paul had not.  He had never come face to face with the charity broker—­the man who stands between the needy and the giver, giving nothing himself, and living on his brokerage, sitting in a comfortable chair, with his feet on a Turkey carpet in his office on a main thoroughfare.  Paul had met none of these, and the only organized charity