“Do you understand Russian soups?” asked Margaret of Claudius, as she deposited a spoonful of a wonderful looking pate in the middle of her consomme.

“Alas” said the Doctor, “I am no gastronome.  At least my friend Mr. Barker tells me so, but I have great powers of adaptation.  I shall follow your example, and shall doubtless fare sumptuously.”

“Do not fear,” said she, “you shall not have any more strange and Cossack things to eat.  I like some Russian things, but they are so tremendous, that unless you have them first you cannot have them at all.”

“I think it is rather a good plan,” said Barker, “to begin with something characteristic.  It settles the plan of action in one’s mind, and helps the memory.”

“Do you mean in things in general, or only in dinner?” asked the Countess.

“Oh, things in general, of course.  I always generalise.  In conversation, for instance.  Take the traditional English stage father.  He always devotes himself to everlasting perdition before he begins a sentence,—­and then you know what to expect.”

“On the principle of knowing the worst—­I understand,” said Margaret.

“As long as people understand each other,” Claudius put in, “it is always better to plunge in medias res from the first.”

“Yes, Dr. Claudius, you understand that very well;” and Margaret turned towards him as she spoke.

“The Doctor understands many things,” said Barker in parenthesis.

“You have not yet reported the progress of the crusade,” continued the Countess, “I must know all about it at once.”

“I have been plotting and planning in the spirit, while my body has been frequenting the frivolities of this over-masculine world,” answered the Doctor.  At this point Miss Skeat attacked Mr. Barker about the North American Indians, and the conversation paired off, as it will under such circumstances.

Claudius was in good spirits and talked wittily, half in jest, one would have thought, but really in earnest, about what was uppermost in his mind, and what he intended should be uppermost in the world.  It was a singular conversation, in the course of which he sometimes spoke very seriously; but the Countess did not allow herself the luxury of being serious, though it was an effort to her to laugh at the enthusiasm of his language, for he had a strong vitality, and something of the gift which carries people away.  But Margaret had an impression that Claudius was making love, and had chosen this attractive ground upon which to open his campaign.  She could not wholly believe him different from other men—­at least she would not believe so soon—­and her instinct told her that the fair-haired student admired her greatly.