harmonious charm of her whole person, its strength, its grace, its tranquil frankness—­and then he had turned his gaze away.  He said to himself that all this was not for him; the beauty of women and the friendship of men were not for him.  He accepted that feeling with a purposeful sternness, and tried to pass on.  It was only her outstretched hand which brought about the recognition.  It stands recorded in the pages of his self-confession, that it nearly suffocated him physically with an emotional reaction of hate and dismay, as though her appearance had been a piece of accomplished treachery.

He faced about.  The considerable elevation of the terrace concealed them from anyone lingering in the doorway of the house; and even from the upstairs windows they could not have been seen.  Through the thickets run wild, and the trees of the gently sloping grounds, he had cold, placid glimpses of the lake.  A moment of perfect privacy had been vouchsafed to them at this juncture.  I wondered to myself what use they had made of that fortunate circumstance.

“Did you have time for more than a few words?” I asked.

That animation with which she had related to me the incidents of her visit to the Chateau Borel had left her completely.  Strolling by my side, she looked straight before her; but I noticed a little colour on her cheek.  She did not answer me.

After some little time I observed that they could not have hoped to remain forgotten for very long, unless the other two had discovered Madame de S—­ swooning with fatigue, perhaps, or in a state of morbid exaltation after the long interview.  Either would require their devoted ministrations.  I could depict to myself Peter Ivanovitch rushing busily out of the house again, bareheaded, perhaps, and on across the terrace with his swinging gait, the black skirts of the frock-coat floating clear of his stout light grey legs.  I confess to having looked upon these young people as the quarry of the “heroic fugitive.”  I had the notion that they would not be allowed to escape capture.  But of that I said nothing to Miss Haldin, only as she still remained uncommunicative, I pressed her a little.

“Well—­but you can tell me at least your impression.”

She turned her head to look at me, and turned away again.

“Impression?” she repeated slowly, almost dreamily; then in a quicker tone—­

“He seems to be a man who has suffered more from his thoughts than from evil fortune.”

“From his thoughts, you say?”

“And that is natural enough in a Russian,” she took me up.  “In a young Russian; so many of them are unfit for action, and yet unable to rest.”

“And you think he is that sort of man?”

“No, I do not judge him.  How could I, so suddenly?  You asked for my impression—­I explain my impression.  I—­I—­don’t know the world, nor yet the people in it; I have been too solitary—­I am too young to trust my own opinions.”