“In comforting a bereaved mother?  Yes!” he broke in in a manner which made her open her clear unsuspecting eyes.  “But there is a question of fitness.  Has this occurred to you?”

There was a breathlessness in his utterance which contrasted with the monstrous hint of mockery in his intention.

“Why!” whispered Natalia Haldin with feeling.  “Who more fit than you?”

He had a convulsive movement of exasperation, but controlled himself.

“Indeed!  Directly you heard that I was in Geneva, before even seeing me?  It is another proof of that confidence which....”

All at once his tone changed, became more incisive and more detached.

“Men are poor creatures, Natalia Victorovna.  They have no intuition of sentiment.  In order to speak fittingly to a mother of her lost son one must have had some experience of the filial relation.  It is not the case with me—­if you must know the whole truth.  Your hopes have to deal here with ‘a breast unwarmed by any affection,’ as the poet says....  That does not mean it is insensible,” he added in a lower tone.

“I am certain your heart is not unfeeling,” said Miss Haldin softly.

“No.  It is not as hard as a stone,” he went on in the same introspective voice, and looking as if his heart were lying as heavy as a stone in that unwarmed breast of which he spoke.  “No, not so hard.  But how to prove what you give me credit for—­ah! that’s another question.  No one has ever expected such a thing from me before.  No one whom my tenderness would have been of any use to.  And now you come.  You!  Now!  No, Natalia Victorovna.  It’s too late.  You come too late.  You must expect nothing from me.”

She recoiled from him a little, though he had made no movement, as if she had seen some change in his face, charging his words with the significance of some hidden sentiment they shared together.  To me, the silent spectator, they looked like two people becoming conscious of a spell which had been lying on them ever since they first set eyes on each other.  Had either of them cast a glance then in my direction, I would have opened the door quietly and gone out.  But neither did; and I remained, every fear of indiscretion lost in the sense of my enormous remoteness from their captivity within the sombre horizon of Russian problems, the boundary of their eyes, of their feelings—­the prison of their souls.

Frank, courageous, Miss Haldin controlled her voice in the midst of her trouble.

“What can this mean?” she asked, as if speaking to herself.

“It may mean that you have given yourself up to vain imaginings while I have managed to remain amongst the truth of things and the realities of life—­our Russian life—­such as they are.”

“They are cruel,” she murmured.

“And ugly.  Don’t forget that—­and ugly.  Look where you like.  Look near you, here abroad where you are, and then look back at home, whence you came.”