But the attachi 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.