“Dieu m’en garde!” said the Count devoutly.  “I am a Republican, that is all.  Seulement, our Holy Russia does not distinguish.”

“Is not the distinction very subtle?”

“The difference between salvation by education and salvation by dynamite; the difference between building up and tearing down, between Robespierre and Monsieur Washington.”

“You must have been indiscreet.  How could they have found it out?”

“I was bete enough to write an article in the Russki Mir—­the mildest of articles.  And then some of the Nihilist agents thought I was in their interests and wanted to see me, and the police observed them, and I was at once classed as a Nihilist myself, and there was a perquisition in my house.  They found some notes and a few manuscripts of mine, quite enough to suit their purpose, and so the game was up.”

“But they did not arrest you?”

“No.  As luck would have it, I was in Berlin at the time, on leave from my regiment, for I was never suspected before in the least.  And the Nihilists, who, to tell the truth, are well organised and take good care of their brethren, succeeded in passing word to me not to come back.  A few days afterwards the Russian Embassy were hunting for me in Berlin.  But I had got away.  Sentence was passed in contempt, and I read the news in the papers on my way to Paris.  There is the whole history.”

“Have you any money?” inquired Margaret after a pause.

“Mon Dieu!  I have still a hundred napoleons.  After that the deluge.”

“By that time we shall be ready for the deluge,” said Margaret cheerfully.  “I have many friends, and something may yet be done.  Meanwhile do not distress yourself about me; you know I have something of my own.”

“How can I thank you for your kindness?  You ought to hate me, and instead you console!”

“My dear friend, if I did not like you for your own sake, I would help you because you are poor Alexis’s brother.”  There was no emotion in her voice at the mention of her dead husband, only a certain reverence.  She had honoured him more than she had loved him.

“Princesse, quand meme,” said Nicholas in a low voice, as he raised her fingers to his lips.

“Leave me your address before you go.  I will write as soon as I have decided what to do.”  Nicholas scratched the name of a hotel on his card.

When he was gone Margaret sank into a chair.  She would have sent for Claudius—­Claudius was a friend—­but she recollected his note, and thought with some impatience that just when she needed him most he was away.  Then she thought of Lady Victoria, and she rang the bell.  But Lady Victoria had gone out with her brother, and they had taken Miss Skeat.  Margaret was left alone in the great hotel.  Far off she could hear a door shut or the clatter of the silver covers of some belated breakfast service finding its way up or down stairs.  And in the street the eternal clatter and hum and