Bureau), a sleek red-haired sensualist, Baron Stepan Andreyeff, and a chivalrous but tactless English journalist, Julian Rolfe, become acquainted with her.  The latter wishes to marry her; the former’s intentions are strictly dishonourable, and with the aid of his ubiquitous secret policemen he persecutes her, using his power to set her free from the attentions of his detestable minions for bargaining purposes in a perfectly Hunnish manner.  Discreet servants, locked doors, champagne, a perfectly priceless dressing jacket, a sliding panel disclosing a luxuriously appointed bedroom—­all these resources are at his disposal.

But he reckons without her hatpin, which in the course of his deplorably abrupt attempts at seduction she pushes adroitly into his heart, and next day well-informed St. Petersburg winks discreetly when it learns that the Baron has died after an operation for appendicitis.

How that nice young man, Julian, is more than a match for the forthright methods of the Okhrana is for you to go and find out.

Mr. ALLAN AYNESWORTH’S finished skill was reinforced by a quite admirable make-up, though only a policeman of very melodrama could have missed that brilliant pate as it shone balefully over the inadequate chair in which he sat concealed while his subordinate was bullying the hapless Anna.  Also I doubt whether so stout a ruffian would have succumbed so promptly to such a simple pin-prick.  But perhaps the surprise, annoyance and keen disappointment broke his soldierly heart.  Anyway, living or dying, the Baron was a clever and plausible performance.

You know Mr. WONTNER’S loose-limbed ease of manner and agreeable voice.  He was rather a stock and stockish hero as he left the author’s hands, but Mr. WONTNER put life and feeling into him.  Miss GLADYS COOPER reached no heights or depths of passion, but took a pleasant middle way, and certainly gets more out of herself than once seemed likely.  I should like to commend to her the excellent doctrine of the “dominant mood.”  She was, for instance, just a little too detached in the recital of that story when playing for time by the bad Baron’s fireside.

Mr. SYDNEY VALENTINE, having happily come by an early death in another theatre, is able to present us a lifelike portrait of a really remorseless policeman in our third Act, condemning folk to Siberia with all the arbitrary despatch of the Red Queen.

On the whole, then, distinctly good of its kind—­transpontine matter with the St. James’s form.

T.

* * * * *

OUR SOUVENIR UNIT.

“No,” said the Canadian slowly, “organization isn’t everything.  Up to a certain point it’s necessary, but there must be a latitude.  Give me scope for initiative every time.