me what you
have been doing all this time, I, at least, will forgive you; for you
will never be able to imagine, senor, how I long to hear of the great
world. I stare at the map, then at the few pictures we have. I know
many books of travel by heart; but I am afraid my imagination is a poor
one, for I cannot conjure up great cities filled with people--thousands
of people! DIOS DE MI ALMA! A world where there is something besides
mountains and water, grain fields, orchards, forests, earthquakes, and
climate? Will you, senor?"

"For quite as many hours as you will listen to me. I propose a
compact. You shall improve my Spanish. I will impart all I know of
Europe--and of Asia--if your curiosity reaches that far."

"Even of Japan?" There was a wicked spark in her eye.

"I see you already have some knowledge of the cause of my delay." His
voice was even, but a wound smarted. "It is quite true, senorita, that
the first embassy to Japan, from which we hoped so much, was a
humiliating failure, and that I was played with for six months by a
people whom we had regarded as a nation of monkeys. When my health
began to suffer from the long confinement on shipboard--we had
previously been fourteen months at sea--and I asked to be permitted to
live on shore while my claims to an audience were under consideration,
I was removed with my suite to a cage on a strip of land nearly
surrounded with water, where I had less liberty and exercise than on
shipboard. Finally, I had a ridiculous interview with a 'great man,'
in which I accomplished nothing but the preservation of what personal
dignity a man may while sitting on his heels; the superb presents of
the Tsar were returned to me, and I was politely told to leave. Japan
wanted neither the friendship of Russia nor her gimcracks. That,
senorita, is the history of the first Russian Embassy--for the
tentative visit of Adam Lanxmann, twelve years before, can be dignified
by no such title--to Oriental waters. It is to be hoped that Count
Golofkin, who was to undertake a similar mission to China, has met with
a better fate."

Underneath the polished armour of a man who was a courtier when he
chose and the dominating spirit always, he was hot and quick of temper.
His light cold eyes glowed with resentment at the dancing lights in
hers, as he cynically gave her a bald abstract of the unfortunate
mission. He reflected that commonly he would have fitted a different
mask to the u