oosing our companion in a car where all the window seats
are taken. The newcomer passed a number of empty places and sat down by
the side of Paul. He was tall, blonde, with dusty looking eyebrows and a
beard that was nearly the colour of dead grass.

"Russian, I guess," thought Paul, "and probably thinks I am something of
the same."

The reflection pleased him.

"If that's the way I look to him, nobody else is going to guess."

When the conductor came, Paul's seat-mate tried to ask if he would have
to change cars before reaching his destination, but his language was so
broken that he couldn't make himself understood.

"I thought he was Russian," Paul nodded to himself, catching a word here
and there; and, aloud, he quietly added in his mother's tongue, "It's all
right, batuchka; you don't have to change."

The other gave him a grateful glance, and soon they were talking
together.

"A Bolshevist," thought Paul, recognizing now and then a phrase or an
argument which he had heard from some of his friends in Rio, "but what's
he going to New Bethel for?"

As the train drew nearer the place of his birth, Paul grew quieter. Old
landmarks, nearly forgotten, began to appear and remind him of the past.

"What time do we get there?" he asked a passing brakeman.

"Eleven-thirty-four."

Paul's companion gave him a look of envy.

"You speak English well," said he.

Paul didn't like that, and took refuge behind one of those Slavonic
indirections which are typical of the Russian mind--an indirection
hinting at mysterious purpose and power.

"There are times in a life," said he, "when it becomes necessary to speak
a foreign language well."

They looked at each other then, and simultaneously they nodded.

"You are right, batuchka," said the blonde giant at last, matching
indirection with indirection. "For myself, I cannot speak English
well--ah, no--but I have a language that all men understand--and
fear--and when I speak, the houses fall and the mountains shake their
heads."

His eyes gleamed and he breathed quickly--intoxicated by the poetry of
his own words; but Paul had heard too much of that sort of imagery to be
impressed.

"A Bolshevist, sure enough," he thought.

A familiar landscape outside attracted his attention.

"We'll be there in a few minutes," he thought. "Yes, there's the road ...
and there's the lower bridge.... I hope that old place at the bend of the
river's still there. I'll take a walk down