He listened—­I felt it—­with profound attention.  His level stare deflected gradually downwards, left my face, and rested at last on the ground at his feet.

“You can enter into the sister’s feelings.  As you said, I have only read a little English poetry with her, and I won’t make myself ridiculous in your eyes by trying to speak of her.  But you have seen her.  She is one of these rare human beings that do not want explaining.  At least I think so.  They had only that son, that brother, for a link with the wider world, with the future.  The very groundwork of active existence for Nathalie Haldin is gone with him.  Can you wonder then that she turns with eagerness to the only man her brother mentions in his letters.  Your name is a sort of legacy.”

“What could he have written of me?” he cried, in a low, exasperated tone.

“Only a few words.  It is not for me to repeat them to you, Mr. Razumov; but you may believe my assertion that these words are forcible enough to make both his mother and his sister believe implicitly in the worth of your judgment and in the truth of anything you may have to say to them.  It’s impossible for you now to pass them by like strangers.”

I paused, and for a moment sat listening to the footsteps of the few people passing up and down the broad central walk.  While I was speaking his head had sunk upon his breast above his folded arms.  He raised it sharply.

“Must I go then and lie to that old woman!”

It was not anger; it was something else, something more poignant, and not so simple.  I was aware of it sympathetically, while I was profoundly concerned at the nature of that exclamation.

“Dear me!  Won’t the truth do, then?  I hoped you could have told them something consoling.  I am thinking of the poor mother now.  Your Russia is a cruel country.”

He moved a little in his chair.

“Yes,” I repeated.  “I thought you would have had something authentic to tell.”

The twitching of his lips before he spoke was curious.

“What if it is not worth telling?”

“Not worth—­from what point of view?  I don’t understand.”

“From every point of view.”

I spoke with some asperity.

“I should think that anything which could explain the circumstances of that midnight arrest....”

“Reported by a journalist for the amusement of the civilized Europe,” he broke in scornfully.

“Yes, reported....  But aren’t they true?  I can’t make out your attitude in this?  Either the man is a hero to you, or...”

He approached his face with fiercely distended nostrils close to mine so suddenly that I had the greatest difficulty in not starting back.

“You ask me!  I suppose it amuses you, all this.  Look here!  I am a worker.  I studied.  Yes, I studied very hard.  There is intelligence here.” (He tapped his forehead with his finger-tips.) “Don’t you think a Russian may have sane ambitions?  Yes—­I had even prospects.  Certainly!  I had.  And now you see me here, abroad, everything gone, lost, sacrificed.  You see me here—­and you ask!  You see me, don’t you?—­sitting before you.”