udded down upon the paper.
Malcolm felt physically ill. The room was close and reeked of vile
tobacco fumes. There was no ventilation, and the oil lamps made the
apartment insufferably hot. An hour, two hours passed, and no further
notice was paid to the two men.

"I can't understand it quite," said Malinkoff in a low voice.
"Ordinarily this would mean serious trouble, but if the Commissary had
any suspicion of you or me, we should have been in prison an hour ago."

Then suddenly Boolba rose.

"What is the hour?" he said.

A dozen voices replied.

"Half-past ten? It is time that the sweeper was here."

He threw back his head and laughed, and the men joined in the laughter.
With a great yellow handkerchief, which reminded Malcolm of something
particularly unpleasant, Boolba wiped the streams from his sightless
eyes and bent down to the woman at his side, and Malcolm heard him say:
"What is his name--he told me," and then he stood up.

"Hay," he said, "you are a boorjoo. You have ordered many men to sweep
your room. Is it not good that a house should be clean, eh?"

"Very good, Boolba," said Malcolm quietly.

"Boolba he calls me. He remembers well. That is good! I stood behind
him, comrades, giving wine and coffee and bowing to this great English
lord! Yes, I, Boolba!" he struck his chest, "crawled on my knees to this
man, and he calls me Boolba now--Boolba!" he roared ferociously. "Come
here! Do this! Clean my boots, Boolba! Come, little Boolba, bow thy neck
that I may rest my foot!"

A voice from the door interrupted him.

"Good!" he said. "My sweeper has arrived, Hay. Once a day she sweeps my
room and once a day she makes my bed. No ordinary woman will satisfy
Boolba. She must come in her furs, drive in her fine carriage from the
Nijitnkaya--behold!"

Malcolm looked to the doorway and was struck dumb with amazement.

The girl who came in was dressed better than he expected any woman to
be dressed in Moscow. A sable wrap was about her shoulders, a sable
toque was on her head. He could not see the worn shoes nor the shabby
dress beneath the costly furs; indeed, he saw nothing but the face--the
face of his dreams--unchanged, unlined, more beautiful than he had
remembered her. She stood stiffly in her pride, her little chin held up,
her contemptuous eyes fixed upon the man at the table. Then loosing her
wrap, she hung it upon a peg, and opening a cupboard, took out a broad
broom.

"Sweep, Irene Yaroslav,"