his mother,
who was said to have derived part of her origin from an English governess
who had come to Lemberg a long way back in the last century. If you had
called him Dobrinski when off his guard he would probably have responded
readily enough; holding, no doubt, that the end crowns all, he had taken
a slight liberty with the family patronymic. To look at, Mr. Dobrinton
was not a very attractive specimen of masculine humanity, but in
Vanessa's eyes he was a link with that civilisation which Clyde seemed so
ready to ignore and forgo. He could sing "Yip-I-Addy" and spoke of
several duchesses as if he knew them--in his more inspired moments almost
as if they knew him. He even pointed out blemishes in the cuisine or
cellar departments of some of the more august London restaurants, a
species of Higher Criticism which was listened to by Vanessa in
awe-stricken admiration. And, above all, he sympathised, at first
discreetly, afterwards with more latitude, with her fretful discontent at
Clyde's nomadic instincts. Business connected with oil-wells had brought
Dobrinton to the neighbourhood of Baku; the pleasure of appealing to an
appreciative female audience induced him to deflect his return journey so
as to coincide a good deal with his new aquaintances' line of march. And
while Clyde trafficked with Persian horse-dealers or hunted the wild grey
pigs in their lairs and added to his notes on Central Asian game-fowl,
Dobrinton and the lady discussed the ethics of desert respectability from
points of view that showed a daily tendency to converge. And one evening
Clyde dined alone, reading between the courses a long letter from
Vanessa, justifying her action in flitting to more civilised lands with a
more congenial companion.

It was distinctly evil luck for Vanessa, who really was thoroughly
respectable at heart, that she and her lover should run into the hands of
Kurdish brigands on the first day of their flight. To be mewed up in a
squalid Kurdish village in close companionship with a man who was only
your husband by adoption, and to have the attention of all Europe drawn
to your plight, was about the least respectable thing that could happen.
And there were international complications, which made things worse.
"English lady and her husband, of foreign nationality, held by Kurdish
brigands who demand ransom" had been the report of the nearest Consul.
Although Dobrinton was British at heart, the other portions of him
b