things I know little. I have lived here in this
flat all the time, and I go out so rarely--"

The Russian put in with eagerness:

"Oh, I also! I go out, so to speak, not at all."

"I thought I had seen you once in the Promenade at the--"

"Yes, it is true," interrupted the Russian quickly. "I went from
curiosity, for distraction. You see, since the war I have lived
in Dublin. I had there a friend, very highly placed in the
administration. He married. One lived terrible hours during the
revolt. I decided to come to London, especially as--However, I do not
wish to fatigue you with all that."

Christine said nothing. The Irish Rebellion did not interest her.
She was in no mood for talking about the Irish Rebellion. She had
convinced herself that all Sinn Feiners were in German pay, and naught
else mattered. Never, she thought, had the British Government
carried ingenuousness further than in this affair! Given a free hand,
Christine with her strong, direct common sense would have settled the
Irish question in forty-eight hours.

The Russian, after a little pause, continued:

"I merely wished to ask you whether the notice to quit was
serious--not a trick for raising the rent."

Christine shook her head to the last clause.

"And then, if the notice was quite serious, whether you knew of any
flats--not too dear.... Not that I mind a good rent if one receives
the value of it, and is left tranquil."

The conversation might at this point have taken a more useful turn if
Christine had not felt bound to hold herself up against the other's
high tone of indifference to expenditure. The Russian, in demanding
"tranquillity," had admitted that she regularly practised the
profession--or, as English girls strangely called it, "the
business"--and Christine could have followed her lead into the region
of gossiping and intimate realism where detailed confidences are
enlighteningly exchanged; but the tone about money was a challenge.

"I should have been enchanted to be of service to you," said
Christine. "But I know nothing. I go out less and less. As for this
notice, I smile at it. I have a friend upon whom I can count for
everything. I have only to tell him, and he will put me among my own
furniture at once. He has indeed already suggested it. So that, _je
m'en fiche_."

"I also!" said the Russian. "My new friend--he is a colonel, sent from
Dublin to London--has insisted upon putting me among my own furniture.
But I have r