ive, and he had a
high, shrill voice. He talked incessantly. There were several
delightful, middle-aged women, quiet and ready to be pleased with
everything--the best Russian type of all perhaps, women who knew life,
who were generously tolerant, kind-hearted, with a quiet sense of humour
and no nonsense about them. There was one fat red-faced man in a very
tight black coat, who gave his opinion always about food and drink. He
was from Moscow--his name Paul Leontievitch Rozanov--and I met him on a
later occasion of which I shall have to tell in its place. Then there
were two young girls who giggled a great deal and whispered together.
They hung around Nina and stroked her hair and admired her dress, and
laughed at Boris Grogoff and any one else who was near them.

Nina was immensely happy. She loved parties of course, and especially
parties in which she was the hostess. She was like a young kitten or
puppy in a white frock, with her hair tumbling over her eyes. She was
greatly excited, and as joyous as though there were no war, and no
afflicted Russia, and nothing serious in all the world. This was the
first occasion on which I suspected that Grogoff cared for her.
Outwardly he did nothing but chaff and tease her, and she responded in
that quick rather sharp and very often crudely personal way at which
foreigners for the first time in Russian company so often wonder.
Badinage with Russians so quickly passes to lively and noisy
quarrelling, which in its turn so suddenly fades into quiet contented
amiability that it is little wonder that the observer feels rather
breathless at it all. Grogoff was a striking figure, with his fine
height and handsome head and bold eyes, but there was something about
him that I did not like. Immensely self-confident, he nevertheless
seldom opened his mouth without betraying great ignorance about almost
everything. He was hopelessly ill-educated, and was the more able
therefore from the very little knowledge that he had to construct a very
simple Socialist creed in which the main statutes were that everything
should be taken from the rich and given to the poor, the peasants
should have all the land, and the rulers of the world be beheaded. He
had no knowledge of other countries, although he talked very freely of
what he called his "International Principles." I could not respect him
as I could many Russian revolutionaries, because he had never on any
occasion put himself out or suffered any in