“Oh, I am sorry——­”

“But I am not.  Instead of twaddle and boredom round somebody or other’s samovar, I am going to have honest talk under the chaperonage of an English teapott—­my own teapot, which I carry everywhere.  But don’t be afraid; I shall not give you English tea.  What a shame that I have been here for two months without our meeting!  I have talked about you—­wanted to know you.  Look!”

She pointed to the periodicals which Piers had already noticed.

“No,” she went on, checking him as he was about to sit down, “that is your chair.  If you sat on the other, you would be polite and grave and—­like everybody else; I know the influence of chairs.  That is the chair my husband selects when he wishes to make me understand some point of etiquette.  Miss Derwent warned you, no doubt, of my shortcomings in etiquette?”

“All she said to me,” replied Piers, laughing, “was that you are very much her friend.”

“Well, that is true, I hope.  Tell me, please; is the article in the Vyestnik your own Russian?”

“Not entirely.  I have a friend named Korolevitch, who went through it for me.”

“Korolevitch?  I seem to know that name.  Is he, by chance, connected with some religious movement, some heresy?”

“I was going to say I am sorry he is; yet I can’t be sorry for what honours the man.  He has joined the Dukhobortsi; has sold his large estate, and is devoting all the money to their cause.  I’m afraid he’ll go to some new-world colony, and I shall see little of him henceforth.  A great loss to me.”

Mrs. Borisoff kept her eyes upon him as he spoke, seeming to reflect rather than to listen.

“I ought to tell you,” she said, “that I don’t know Russian.  Irene —­Miss Derwent almost shamed me into working at it; but I am so lazy—­ah, so lazy! you are aware, of course, that Miss Derwent has learnt it?”

“Has learnt Russian?” exclaimed Piers.  “I didn’t know—­I had no idea——­”

“Wonderful girl!  I suppose she thinks it a trifle.”

“It’s so long,” said Otway, “since I had any news of Miss Derwent.  I can hardly consider myself one of her friends—­at least, I shouldn’t have ventured to do so until this morning, when I was surprised and delighted to have a letter from her about that Nineteenth Century article, sent through the publishers.  She spoke of you, and asked me to call—­saying she had written an introduction of me by the same post.”

Mrs. Borisoff smiled oddly.

“Oh yes; it came.  She didn’t speak of the Vyestnik?”

“No.”

“Yet she has read it—­I happen to know.  I’m sorry I can’t.  Tell me about it, will you?”

The Russian article was called “New Womanhood in England.”  It began with a good-tempered notice of certain novels then popular, and passed on to speculations regarding the new ideals of life set before English women.  Piers spoke of it as a mere bit of apprentice work, meant rather to amuse than as a serious essay.