De Chauxville knew and was known of many. He had but recently arrived from London. He found himself called upon to shake hands a l'anglais with this one and that, giving all and sundry his impressions of the perfidious Albion with a verve and neatness truly French. He went from one to the other with perfect grace and savoir-faire, and each change of position brought him nearer to the middle-aged man with upturned mustache, upon whom his movements were by no means lost.

Finally De Chauxville bumped against the object of his quest--possibly, indeed, the object of his presence at the Concours Hippique. He turned with a ready apology.

"Ah!" he exclaimed; "the very man I was desiring to see."

The individual known as "ce Vassili"--a term of mingled contempt and distrust--bowed very low. He was a plain commoner, while his interlocutor was a baron. The knowledge of this was subtly conveyed in his bow.

"How can I serve M. le Baron?" he enquired in a voice which was naturally loud and strong, but had been reduced by careful training to a tone inaudible at the distance of a few paces.

"By following me to the Cafe Tantale in ten minutes," answered De Chauxville, passing on to greet a lady who was bowing to him with the labored grace of a Parisienne.

Vassili merely bowed and stood upright again. There was something in his attitude of quiet attention, of unobtrusive scrutiny and retiring intelligence, vaguely suggestive of the police--something which his friends refrained from mentioning to him; for this Vassili was a dignified man, of like susceptibilities with ourselves, and justly proud of the fact that he belonged to the Corps Diplomatique. What position he occupied in that select corporation he never vouchsafed to define. But it was known that he enjoyed considerable emoluments, while he was never called upon to represent his country or his emperor in any official capacity. He was attached, he said, to the Russian Embassy. His enemies called him a spy; but the world never puts a charitable construction on that of which it only has a partial knowledge.

In ten minutes Claude de Chauxville left the Concours Hippique. In the Champs Elysees he turned to the left, up toward the Bois du Boulogne; turned to the left again, and took one of the smaller paths that lead to one or other of the sequestered and somewhat select cafes on the south side of the Champs Elysees.

At the Cafe Tantale--not in the garden, for it was winter, but in the inner room--he found the man called Vassili consuming a pensive and solitary glass of liqueur.

De Chauxville sat down, stated his requirements to the waiter in a single word, and offered his companion a cigarette, which Vassili accepted with the consciousness that it came from a coroneted case.

"I am rather thinking of visiting Russia," said the Frenchman.

"Again," added Vassili, in his quiet voice.

De Chauxville looked up sharply, smiled, and waved the word away with a gesture of the fingers that held a cigarette.

"If you will--again."

"On private affairs?" enquired Vassili, not so much, it would appear, from curiosity as from habit. He put the question with the assurance of one who has a right to know.

De Chauxville nodded acquiescence through the tobacco smoke.

"The bane of public men--private affairs," he said epigrammatically.

But the attache to the Russian Embassy was either too dense or too clever to be moved to a sympathetic smile by a cheap epigram.

"And M. le Baron wants a passport?" he said, lapsing into the useful third person, which makes the French language so much more fitted to social and diplomatic purposes than is our rough northern tongue.

"And more," answered De Chauxville. "I want what you hate parting with--information."

The man called Vassili leaned back in his chair with a little smile. It was an odd little smile, which fell over his features like a mask and completely hid his thoughts. It was apparent that Claude de Chauxville's tricks of speech and manner fell here on barren ground. The Frenchman's epigrams, his method of conveying his meaning in a non-committing and impersonal generality, failed to impress this hearer. The difference between a Frenchman and a Russian is that the former is amenable to every outward influence--the outer thing penetrates. The Russian, on the contrary, is a man who works his thoughts, as it were, from internal generation to external action. The action, moreover, is demonstrative, which makes the Russian different from other northern nations of an older civilization and a completer self-control.

"Then," said Vassili, "if I understand M. le Baron aright, it is a question of private and personal affairs that suggests this journey to--Russia?"

"Precisely."

"In no sense a mission?" suggested the other, sipping his liqueur thoughtfully.

"In no sense a mission. I give you a proof. I have been granted six months' leave of absence, as you probably know."

"Precisely so, mo' cher Baron." Vassili had a habit of applying to every one the endearing epithet, which lost a consonant somewhere in his mustache. "When a military officer is granted a six months' leave, it is exactly then that we watch him."

De Chauxville shrugged his shoulders in deprecation, possibly with contempt for any system of watching.

"May one call it an affaire de coeur?" asked Vassili, with his grim smile.

"Certainly. Are not all private affairs such, one way or the other?"

"And you want a passport?"

"Yes--a special one."

"I will see what I can do."

"Thank you."

Vassili emptied his glass, drew in his feet, and glanced at the clock.

"But that is not all I want," said De Chauxville.

"So I perceive."

"I want you to tell me what you know of Prince Pavlo Alexis."

"Of Tver?"

"Of Tver. What you know from your point of view, you understand, my dear Vassili. Nothing political, nothing incriminating, nothing official. I only want a few social details."

Again the odd smile fell over the dignified face.

"In case," said Vassili, rather slowly, "I should only impart to you stale news and valueless details with which you are already acquainted, I must ask you to tell me first what you know--from your point of view."

"Certainly," answered De Chauxville, with engaging frankness. "The man I know slightly is the sort of thing that Eton and Oxford turn out by the dozen. Well dressed, athletic, silent, a thorough gentleman--et voila tout."

The face of Vassili expressed something remarkably like disbelief.

"Ye--es," he said slowly.

"And you?" suggested De Chauxville.

"You leave too much to my imagination," said Vassili. "You relate mere facts--have you no suppositions, no questions in your mind about the man?"

"I want to know what his purpose in life may be. There is a purpose--one sees it in his face. I want also to know what he does with his spare time; he must have much to dispose of in England."

Vassili nodded, and suddenly launched into detail.

"Prince Pavlo Alexis," he said, "is a young man who takes a full and daring advantage of his peculiar position. He defies many laws in a quiet, persistent way which impresses the smaller authorities and to a certain extent paralyzes them. He was in the Charity League--deeply implicated. He had a narrow escape. He was pulled through by the cleverest man in Russia."

"Karl Steinmetz?"