ove all,
of security. My mind flew to the Markovitches, and I smiled to myself at
the thought of the contrast.

Then, strangely, when I had once thought of the Markovitch flat the
picture haunted me for the rest of the evening. I could see the Baron's
gilt chairs and gold clock, his little Imperial and shining shoes only
through the cloudy disorder of the Markovitch tables and chairs. There
was poor Markovitch in his dark little room perched on his chair with
his boots, with his hands, with his hair... and there was poor Uncle
and there poor Vera.... Why was I pitying them? I gloried in them. That
is Russia... This is....

"Allow me to introduce you to my wife," the Baron said, bending forward,
the very points of his toes expressing amiability.

The Baroness was a large solid lady with a fine white bosom and strong
white arms. Her face was homely and kind; I saw at once that she adored
her husband; her placid smile carried beneath its placidity a tremulous
anxiety that he should be pleased, and her mild eyes swam in the light
of his encouragement. I was sure, however, that the calm and discipline
that I felt in the things around me came as much from her domesticity as
from his discipline. She was a fortunate woman in that she had attained
the ambition of her life--to govern the household of a man whom she
could both love and fear.

Lawrence came in, and we went through high folding doors into the
dining-room. This room had dark-blue wall-paper, electric lights heavily
shaded, and soft heavy carpets. The table itself was flooded with
light--the rest of the room was dusk. I wondered as I looked about me
why the Wilderlings had taken Lawrence as a paying guest. Before my
visit I had imagined that they were poor, as so many of the better-class
Russians were, but here were no signs of poverty. I decided that.

Our dinner was good, and the wine was excellent. We talked, of course,
politics, and the Baron was admirably frank.

"I won't disguise from you, M. Durward," he said, "that some of us watch
your English effort at winning the heart of this country with sympathy,
but also, if I am not offending you, with some humour. I'm not speaking
only of your propaganda efforts. You've got, I know, one or two literary
gentlemen here--a novelist, I think, and a professor and a journalist.
Well, soon you'll find them inefficient, and decide that you must have
some commercial gentlemen, and then, disappointed with them, you'll
de