“She started from her reverie with a flush, and after a pause struck slowly a few simple chords, then began one of those strangely sweet, yet intensely pathetic Russian airs, which give one a curious revelation of the profound, endless melancholy lurking in the national mind.

“‘What do you think of it?’ asked the baron of me when it ceased.

“’What I have always thought of such music—­it is that of a hopeless people; poetical, crushed, and resigned.’

“He gave a loud laugh.  ’Hear the analyst, the psychologue—­why, man, it is a love song!  Is it possible that we, uncivilized, are truer realists than our hypercultured Western neighbors?  Have we gone to the root of the matter, in our simple way?’

“The baroness got up abruptly.  She looked white and spent; there were bister circles round her eyes.

“‘I am tired,’ she said, with dry lips.  ’You will excuse me, Mr. Marshfield, I must really go to bed.’

“‘Go to bed, go to bed,’ cried her husband gayly.  Then, quoting in Russian from the song she had just sung:  ’Sleep, my little soft white dove:  my little innocent tender lamb!’ She hurried from the room.  The baron laughed again, and, taking me familiarly by the arm, led me to his own set of apartments for the promised smoke.  He ensconced me in an armchair, placed cigars of every description and a Turkish pipe ready to my hand, and a little table on which stood cut-glass flasks and beakers in tempting array.

“After I had selected my cigar with some precautions, I glanced at him over a careless remark, and was startled to see a sudden alteration in his whole look and attitude.

“‘You will forgive me, Marshfield,’ he said, as he caught my eye, speaking with spasmodic politeness.  ’It is more than probable that I shall have to set out upon this chase I spoke of to-night, and I must now go and change my clothes, that I may be ready to start at any moment.  This is the hour when it is most likely these hell beasts are to be got at.  You have all you want, I hope,’ interrupting an outbreak of ferocity by an effort after his former courtesy.

“It was curious to watch the man of the world struggling with the primitive man.

“‘But, baron,’ said I, ’I do not at all see the fun of sticking at home like this.  You know my passion for witnessing everything new, strange, and outlandish.  You will surely not refuse me such an opportunity for observation as a midnight wolf raid.  I will do my best not to be in the way if you will take me with you.’

“At first it seemed as if he had some difficulty in realizing the drift of my words, he was so engrossed by some inner thought.  But as I repeated them, he gave vent to a loud cachinnation.

“‘By heaven!  I like your spirit,’ he exclaimed, clapping me strongly on the shoulder.  ‘Of course you shall come.  You shall,’ he repeated, ’and I promise you a sight, a hunt such as you never heard or dreamed of—­you will be able to tell them in England the sort of thing we can do here in that line—­such wolves are rare quarry,’ he added, looking slyly at me, ‘and I have a new plan for getting at them.’