“Marveling, yet comforted withal, I followed the solemn butler, who received me with the deference due to an expected guest and expressed the master’s regret for his enforced absence till dinner time.  I traversed vast rooms, each more sumptuous than the last, feeling the strangeness of the contrast between the outer desolation and this sybaritic excess of luxury growing ever more strongly upon me; caught a glimpse of a picture gallery, where peculiar yet admirably executed latter-day French pictures hung side by side with ferocious boar hunts of Snyder and such kin; and, at length, was ushered into a most cheerful room, modern to excess in its comfortable promise, where, in addition to the tall stove necessary for warmth, there burned on an open hearth a vastly pleasant fire of resinous logs, and where, on a low table, awaited me a dainty service of fragrant Russian tea.

“My impression of utter novelty seemed somehow enhanced by this unexpected refinement in the heart of the solitudes and in such a rugged shell, and yet, when I came to reflect, it was only characteristic of my cosmopolitan host.  But another surprise was in store for me.

“When I had recovered bodily warmth and mental equilibrium in my downy armchair, before the roaring logs, and during the delicious absorption of my second glass of tea, I turned my attention to the French valet, evidently the baron’s own man, who was deftly unpacking my portmanteau, and who, unless my practiced eye deceived me, asked for nothing better than to entertain me with agreeable conversation the while.

“‘Your master is out, then?’ quoth I, knowing that the most trivial remark would suffice to start him.

“True, Monseigneur was out; he was desolated in despair (this with the national amiable and imaginative instinct); ’but it was doubtless important business.  M. le Baron had the visit of his factor during the midday meal; had left the table hurriedly, and had not been seen since.  Madame la Baronne had been a little suffering, but she would receive monsieur!’

“‘Madame!’ exclaimed I, astounded, ’is your master then married?—­since when?’—­visions of a fair Tartar, fit mate for my baron, immediately springing somewhat alluringly before my mental vision.  But the answer dispelled the picturesque fancy.

“‘Oh, yes,’ said the man, with a somewhat peculiar expression.  ’Yes, Monseigneur is married.  Did Monsieur not know?  And yet it was from England that Monseigneur brought back his wife.’

“‘An Englishwoman!’

“My first thought was one of pity; an Englishwoman alone in this wilderness—­two days’ drive from even a railway station—­and at the mercy of Kossowski!  But the next minute I reversed my judgment.  Probably she adored her rufous lord, took his veneer of courtesy—­a veneer of the most exquisite polish, I grant you, but perilously thin—­for the very perfection of chivalry.  Or perchance it was his inner savageness itself that charmed her; the most refined women often amaze one by the fascination which the preponderance of the brute in the opposite sex seems to have for them.