Naida came down the hall, cool and exquisitely gowned in a creation of shimmering white.  Nigel led her into the rarely used drawing-room and found a chair for her between the open window and the conservatory.  At first they exchanged but few words.  The sense of her near presence affected Nigel as nothing of the sort had ever done before.  She for her part seemed quite content with a silence which had in it many of the essentials of eloquence.

“If the history of these days is ever written by an irascible German historian,” Naida remarked at length, “he will probably declare that the destinies of the world have been affected during this last month by an outburst of primitivism.  Do you know that I have written quite nice things to Paul about you English people?  Honest things, of course, but still things which you helped me to discover.  And Prince Shan, too.  I think that when he rode here through the clouds, he believed in his heart that he was coming as a harbinger of woe.”

“You really think, then, that the crisis is past?” Nigel asked.

She nodded.

“I am almost sure of it.  Prince Shan returns to China within the course of the next few days.”

“We have lived so long,” Nigel observed, “in dread of the unknown.  I wonder whether we shall ever understand the exact nature of the danger with which we were faced.”

“It depends upon Prince Shan,” she replied.  “The terms were Immelan’s, but the method was his.”

“Do you believe,” he asked a little abruptly, “that the attempt on Prince Shan’s life last night was made by Immelan?”

There was a touch, perhaps, of her Muscovite ancestry in the cool indifference with which she considered the matter.

“I should think it most likely,” she decided.  “Prince Shan never changes his mind, and I believe that he has decided against Immelan’s scheme.  Immelan’s only chance would be in Prince Shan’s successor.”

“Why is China so necessary?” Nigel asked.

She turned and smiled at her companion.

“Alas!” she sighed, “we have reached an impasse.  The great English diplomat asks too many questions of the simple Russian girl.”

“It is unfortunate,” he replied, in the same vein, “because I feel like asking more.”

“As, for example?”

“Whether you would be content to live for the rest of your life in any other country except Russia.”

“A woman is content to live anywhere, under certain circumstances,” she murmured.

Karschoff, discreetly announced, entered the room with flamboyant ease.

“It is well to be young!” he exclaimed, as he bent over Naida’s fingers.  “You look, my far-away but much beloved cousin, as though you had slept peacefully through the night and spent the morning in this soft, sunlit air, with perhaps, if one might suggest such a thing, an hour at a Bond Street beauty parlour.  Here am I with crow’s-feet under my eyes and ghosts walking by my side.  Yet none the less,” he added, as the door opened and Maggie appeared, “looking forward to my luncheon and to hear all the news.”