“Nothing of her, I assure you!” Basil emphatically declared; “but—one of my friends is interested in the question, and it is for him I speak. Surely you have still means at your disposal, my excellent friend, of finding out what I ask.”
“Certainly! It would be fine if an ex-Chief of Police—who managed to escape the régime of bombs to which all of us are subject—had not retained enough intelligence to accomplish so slight a thing. But why do you bother about other people’s love intrigues? Now that you are à l’abris des voitures, as our amiable allies say. It’s a loss of time, and you’ll get no thanks for your pains.”
“I am not looking for thanks,” Basil dryly observed.
“All the better for you. But you don’t suppose I can give you the information you seek at five seconds’ notice, do you, boiling youth? My head is no longer pigeon-holed like a receptacle for dossiers.”
“I wish you could, for I am leaving for Tverna on the next train, and I do not expect to be in Petersburg again for some time.”
“As pressing as that? Had trouble with your peasants, I heard, some time ago. Nothing very terrible, eh?”
“No.”
“You have preserved your martial curtness, I see. I’m glad it wasn’t serious, since you are so constructed that you can’t bring yourself to shoot a few of them down to cool their blood. Ah! You can flatter yourself that your father and you were and are merciful proprietors! But, mark my words, my boy, you will get yourself shaken out of the saddle if you continue to ride without a martingale. The efforts of our worthy agitators will be crowned with success sooner or later; never doubt it; and when you have to call in a sotnia or two of whole-hearted Kossàks in order to prevent murder and sudden death, those mujiks of yours will rue the day when you gave them their head so imprudently. Here I am, however, galloping my favorite hobby again, instead of thinking of your Lesghise. Let me see—an English officer, did you say?”
He raised himself from the downy depths of his great arm-chair, and hobbled—for he had a gouty foot—to a large safe in the corner, draped and concealed beneath a Persian silk fabric that had the bloom of a ripe plum upon its soft folds.
Refusing Basil’s aid, he opened the ponderous steel door, turned on an electric bulb near by, and after a few moments’ search returned to his seat, holding in his hand a thick-set volume bound in dark-green morocco, and gold-lettered at the back “Daily Journal.”