He greeted me with great courtesy.  His voice was soft, and he spoke perfect English, save for a very slight accent that was rather charming; this gave his words a certain naivete.  He rubbed his hands and smiled in a gentle but determined way, as though he meant no harm by it, but had decided that it was a necessary thing to do.  I forget of what we talked, but I know that I surrendered myself at once to an atmosphere that had been strange to me for so long that I had almost forgotten its character—­an atmosphere of discipline, order, comfort, and above all, of security.  My mind flew to the Markovitches, and I smiled to myself at the thought of the contrast.

Then, strangely, when I had once thought of the Markovitch flat the picture haunted me for the rest of the evening.  I could see the Baron’s gilt chairs and gold clock, his little Imperial and shining shoes only through the cloudy disorder of the Markovitch tables and chairs.  There was poor Markovitch in his dark little room perched on his chair with his boots, with his hands, with his hair... and there was poor Uncle and there poor Vera....  Why was I pitying them?  I gloried in them.  That is Russia...  This is....

“Allow me to introduce you to my wife,” the Baron said, bending forward, the very points of his toes expressing amiability.

The Baroness was a large solid lady with a fine white bosom and strong white arms.  Her face was homely and kind; I saw at once that she adored her husband; her placid smile carried beneath its placidity a tremulous anxiety that he should be pleased, and her mild eyes swam in the light of his encouragement.  I was sure, however, that the calm and discipline that I felt in the things around me came as much from her domesticity as from his discipline.  She was a fortunate woman in that she had attained the ambition of her life—­to govern the household of a man whom she could both love and fear.

Lawrence came in, and we went through high folding doors into the dining-room.  This room had dark-blue wall-paper, electric lights heavily shaded, and soft heavy carpets.  The table itself was flooded with light—­the rest of the room was dusk.  I wondered as I looked about me why the Wilderlings had taken Lawrence as a paying guest.  Before my visit I had imagined that they were poor, as so many of the better-class Russians were, but here were no signs of poverty.  I decided that.

Our dinner was good, and the wine was excellent.  We talked, of course, politics, and the Baron was admirably frank.

“I won’t disguise from you, M. Durward,” he said, “that some of us watch your English effort at winning the heart of this country with sympathy, but also, if I am not offending you, with some humour.  I’m not speaking only of your propaganda efforts.  You’ve got, I know, one or two literary gentlemen here—­a novelist, I think, and a professor and a journalist.  Well, soon you’ll find them inefficient, and decide that you must have some commercial gentlemen, and then, disappointed with them, you’ll decide for the military... and still the great heart of Russia will remain untouched.”