--" he glanced at the distant group of people who seemed to
be awaiting her.

"You are not detaining me," she said sweetly.

"Your people seem to be waiting----"

"They may go to the deuce. Are you quite alone?"

"I--yes----"

"Shall we have tea together?"

He laughed. "But you've had yours----"

"Well, you know there are other things that one sometimes drinks."

There seemed no way out of it. They went into the tea-room together
and seated themselves.

"How is Vanya?" he inquired.

"Vanya gives a concert to-night in Baltimore."

"And you didn't go!"

"No. It was rainy. Besides, I hear Vanya play when I desire to hear
him."

Their order was served.

"So you wouldn't go to Baltimore," said Jim smilingly. "It strikes me,
Marya, that you can be a coldblooded girl when you wish to be."

"After all, what do you know about me?"

He laughed: "Oh, I don't mean that I've got your number----"

"No. Because I have many numbers. I am a complicated combination," she
added, smiling; "--yet after all, a combination only. And quite simple
when one discovers the key to me."

"I think I know what it is," he said.

"What is it?"

"Mischief."

They laughed. Marya, particularly, was intensely amused. She was
extremely fetching in her bicorne toque and narrow gown of light
turquoise, and her golden beaver scarf and muff.

"Mischief," she repeated. "I should say not. There seems to be already
sufficient mischief loose in the world, with the red tide rising
everywhere--in Russia, in Germany, Austria, Italy, England--yes, and
here also the crimson tide of Bolshevism begins to move.... Tell me;
you are coming to the club to-morrow evening, I hope."

"No."

"Oh. Why?"

"No," he repeated, almost sullenly. "I've had enough of queerness for
a while----"

"Jim! Do you dare include me?"

He had to laugh at her pretence of fury: "No, Marya, you're just a
pretty mischief-maker, I suppose----"

"Then what do you mean by 'queerness'? Don't you think it's sensible
to combat Bolshevism and fight it with argument and debate on its own
selected camping ground? Don't you think it is high time somebody
faced this crimson tide--that somebody started to build a dyke against
this threatened inundation?"

"The best dykes have machine guns behind them, not orators," he said
bluntly.

"My friend, I have seen that, also. And to what have machine guns led
us in Petrograd, in Moscow, in Poland, Finland, Courland--" She
shrugge