“Of course, of course; he ought to,” retorted Athanase. “What is a chief of Secret Service for if not to do things for everybody? For everybody, my dear friends, and a little for himself besides. A chief of Secret Service has to be in with everybody, with everybody and his father, as La Fontaine says (if you know that author), if he wants to hold his place. You know what I mean.”
Athanase laughed loudly, glad of the chance to show how French he could be in his allusions, and looked at Rouletabille to see if he had been able to catch the tone of the conversation; but Rouletabille was too much occupied in watching a profile wrapped in a mantilla of black lace, in the Spanish fashion, to repay Athanase’s performance with a knowing smile.
“You certainly have naive notions. You think a chief of Secret Police should be an ogre,” replied the advocate as he nodded here and there to his friends.
“Why, certainly not. He needs to be a sheep in a place like that, a thorough sheep. Gounsovski is soft as a sheep. The time I dined with him he had mutton streaked with fat. He is just like that. I am sure he is mainly layers of fat. When you shake hands you feel as though you had grabbed a piece of fat. My word! And when he eats he wags his jaw fattishly. His head is like that, too; bald, you know, with a cranium like fresh lard. He speaks softly and looks at you like a kid looking to its mother for a juicy meal.”
“But—why—it is Natacha!” murmured the lips of the young man.
“Certainly it is Natacha, Natacha herself,” exclaimed Ivan Petrovitch, who had used his glasses the better to see whom the young French journalist was looking at. “Ah, the dear child! she has wanted to see Annouchka for a long time.”
“What, Natacha! So it is. So it is. Natacha! Natacha!” said the others. “And with Boris Mourazoff’s parents.”
“But Boris is not there,” sniggered Thaddeus Tehitchnikoff.
“Oh, he can’t be far away. If he was there we would see Michael Korsakoff too. They keep close on each other’s heels.”
“How has she happened to leave the general? She said she couldn’t bear to be away from him.”