"Von Rosenberg and I were busy talking. We had got halfway through the wood before I called to mind where I was." He sat down and fanned himself with his soft felt hat. "He tells me," went on Gerald, "that he has taken Beaulieu for twelve months--furnished, of course--so that we are likely to be neighbours for some time to come."
"He must find English country-life very tame and unexciting after being used to Berlin and St Petersburg."
"You may add, to Paris also. Some years ago he was attached to the German Embassy there."
"To live as he is now living must seem like exile to such a man."
"I am afraid it is little better. But the whisper goes that he is really exiled for a time--that he has contrived in some way to incur the displeasure of the powers that be, and that leave has been given him to travel for the benefit of his health."
"Poor Baron! Let us hope that his eclipse will only be a temporary one.--By-the-bye, there has been some one else to see you while you have been out."
"And they call this the seclusion of the country!"
"Some Russian or Polish acquaintance whom you probably met when abroad."
"Ah! His name?"
"Monsieur Karovsky."