nt
aroma of tobacco-smoke. The atmosphere of the room was manly and
energetic.

Paul showed her his simple stores of medicine--the old coat saturated
with disinfectants which had become the recognized outward sign of the
Moscow doctor.

"And do other people, other noblemen, try to do this sort of thing too?"
asked Etta at length.

"Catrina Lanovitch does," replied Paul.

"What? The girl with the hair?"

"Yes," answered Paul. He had never noticed Catrina's hair. Etta's
appraising eye had seen more in one second than Paul had perceived in
twenty years.

"Yes," he answered. "But, of course, she is handicapped."

"By her appearance?"

"No; by her circumstances. Her name is sufficient to handicap her every
moment in this country. But she does a great deal. She--she found me
out, confound her!"

Etta had risen; she was looking curiously at the cupboard where Paul's
infected clothes were hanging. He had forbidden her to go near it. She
turned and looked at him.

"Found you out! How?" she asked, with a queer smile.

"Saw through my disguise."

"Yes--she would do that!" said Etta aloud to herself.

"What is this door?" she asked, after a pause.

"It leads to an inner room," replied Paul, "where Steinmetz usually
works."

He passed in front of her and opened the door. As he was doing so Etta
went on in the train of her thoughts:

"So Catrina knows?"

"Yes."

"And no one else?"

Paul made no answer; for he had passed on into the smaller room, where
Steinmetz was seated at a writing-table.

"Except, of course, Herr Steinmetz?" Etta went on interrogatively.

"Madame," said the German, looking up with his pleasant smile, "I know
_every thing_."

And he went on writing.

CHAPTER XXVI

BLOODHOUNDS

The table d'hote of the Hotel de Moscou at Tver had just begun. The soup
had been removed; the diners were engaged in igniting their first
cigarette at the candles placed between each pair of them for that
purpose. By nature the modern Russian is a dignified and somewhat
reserved gentleman. By circumstance he has been schooled into a state of
guarded unsociability. If there is a seat at a public table conveniently
removed from those occupied by earlier arrivals the new-comer invariably
takes it. In Russia one converses--as in Scotland one jokes--with
difficulty.

A Russian table d'hote is therefore any thing but hilarious in its
tendency. A certain number of grave-faced gentlemen and a few
broa