He may have had Semyonov’s contempt for the Revolutionary idealist, he may have had Wilderling’s belief in the Czar’s autocracy, he may have had Boris Grogoff’s enthusiasm for freedom and a general holiday.  I don’t know.  I know nothing at all about it.  I don’t think that he saw much of the Wilderlings during the earlier part of the week.  He himself was a great deal with the English Military Mission, and Wilderling was with his party whatever that might be.  He could see of course that Wilderling was disturbed, or perhaps indignant is the right word.  “As though you know,” he said, “some dirty little boy had been pullin’ snooks at him.”  Nevertheless the Baroness was the human link.  Lawrence would see from the first—­that is, from the morning of the Sunday—­that she was in an agony of horror.  She confided in nobody, but went about as though she was watching for something, and at dinner her eyes never left her husband’s face for a moment.  Those evening meals must have been awful.  I can imagine the dignity, the solemn heavy room with all the silver, the ceremonious old man-servant and Wilderling himself behaving as though nothing at all were the matter.  To do him all justice he was as brave as a lion, and as proud as a gladiator, and as conceited as a Prussian.  On the Wednesday evening he did not return home.  He telephoned that he was kept on important business.

The Baroness and Lawrence had the long slow meal together.  It was almost more than Jerry could stand having, of course, his own private tortures to face.  “It was as though the old lady felt that she had been deputed to support the honour of the family during her husband’s absence.  She must have been wild with anxiety, but she showed no sign except that her hand trembled when she raised her glass.”

“What did you talk about?” I asked him.

“Oh, about anything!  Theatres and her home, when she was a girl and England....  Awful, every minute of it!”

There was a moment towards the end of the meal, when the good lady nearly broke down.  The bell in the hall rang and there was a step; she thought it was her husband and half rose.  It was, however, the Dvornik with a message of no importance.  She gave a little sigh.  “Oh, I do wish he would come!...  I do wish he would come!” she murmured to herself.

“Oh, he’ll come,” Lawrence reassured her, but she seemed indignant with him for having overheard her.  Afterwards, sitting together desolately in the magnificent drawing-room, she became affectionately maternal.  I have always wondered why Lawrence confided to me the details of their very intimate conversation.  It was exactly the kind of thing he was most reticent about.

She asked him about his home, his people, his ambitions.  She had asked him about these things before, but to-night there was an appeal in her questions, as though she said: 

“Take my mind off that other thing.  Help me to forget, if it’s only for a moment.”