is
impossible for me to fall in with your arrangements."

Vladimir smiled and shrugged. He knew the type with which he had to
deal. Quixotic and generous to the verge of folly, the type that will
sacrifice itself without reserve for an illusion, an ideal; the type
that filled monasteries, and Siberian prisons, and made a jest for half
the world. Such men were valuable to the Cause, because they gave
ungrudgingly, and never counted cost. The Russian was a man of
affairs, cautious, cynical and given to analysis, and he was also a
student of human nature. He was moreover interested in the unknown
woman.

If he had been told that she was Arithelli the circus-rider, who had
sat silently upon the deck of his yacht dressed in gaudy raiment, and
indifferent almost to stupidity, then his smile would have been
contemptuous instead of tolerant. He was interested too in the unknown
woman's champion. Something in Vardri's attitude of courteous defiance
appealed to him by the law that will attract strongly one man's mind to
another, diverse in every way. He could see that Vardri was plainly
consumptive, and that the disease was in its advanced stages. Even
with the aid of good food and an easier life he could not last more
than a year or two, so one might as well make things a little more
smooth for him during the time.

"I see you have the illusions of youth, my friend," he said carelessly.
"I trust they may remain long unbroken. Myself I am sorry to have
lived beyond the age when they content one. Sit down and talk to me."
He motioned Vardri towards a chair. "Well, since you have refused to
entertain my plan, we must think of something else. I'm at present
writing a series of articles on '_Militarism in France_,' and should
like to have them translated for publication in an English journal.
You speak the language well, better even than Poleski, for you have a
better accent. I have been a good deal in London and I notice the
difference. I suppose you also write it easily?"

"Yes, I had an English tutor."

"Good! Then you will undertake this work, and you shall fix the price
of payment. I'm not in the least afraid of your asking more than I
care to give. You are the type that gets rid of money, not the type
that acquires it. Also I will give you an introduction which will
enable you to get on the staff of _Le Combat_. They want another man
there who is a good linguist, as there is a great deal of
correspond