gardens--"you would think the people were the happiest
in the world. I have never seen so many smiling faces before."

The Count understood the situation better.

"Life is sweet to them because of its uncertainty. They live while they
can. When I used to fish in your English waters, they sent me to a river
where the Mayfly was out--ah, that beautiful, fluttering creature which
may live one minute or may live five. He struggles up from the bottom of
the river, you remember, and then, just as he has extended his splendid
wings, up comes a great trout and swallows him--the poor thing of ten or
twenty or a hundred seconds. Here we struggle up through the social
ranks, and just when the waters of intrigue fascinate us and we go to
play Narcissus to them, up comes the official trout and down his throat
we go. Some day there will be so many of us that the trout will be
gorged and unable to move. Then he will go to the cooking-pot--but not
in our time, I think."

Alban remained silent. That "not in our time" seemed so strange a saying
when he recalled the threats and the promises of the fanatics of Union
Street. Was this fine fellow deceiving himself, or was he like the
Russian bureaucracy, simply ignorant? The lad of twenty could not say,
but he made a shrewder guess at the truth than the diplomatist by his
side.

They visited the Lazienki Park, passing many of Warsaw's famous people
as they went, and so affording the Count many opportunities for
delightful little histories in which such men excel. No pretty woman
escaped his observation, few the rigors of his tongue. He could tell you
precisely when Madame Latienski began to receive young Prince Nicolas at
her house and the exact terms in which old Latienski objected to the
visits. Priests, jockeys, politicians, actors--for these he had a
distinguishing gesture of contempt or pity or gracious admiration. The
actresses invariably recognized him with alluring smiles, which he
received condescendingly as who should say--well, you were fortunate.
When they arrived at the Moktowski barracks, a group of officers quickly
surrounded them and conducted them to a place where champagne corks
might pop and cigarettes be lighted. This was but the beginning of a
round of visits which Alban found tiresome to the last degree. How many
glasses of wine he sipped, how many cigarettes he lighted, he could not
have told you for a fortune. It was nearly five o'clock when they
returned to the