"At first we, the audience, paid her the rare compliment of silence. Then the baron broke forth into loud applause.
"'Brava, brava! that was really said con amore. A delicious love-song, delicious—but French. You must sing one of our Slav melodies for Marshfield before you allow us to go and smoke.'
"She started from her reverie with a flush, and after a pause struck slowly a few simple chords, then began one of those strangely sweet yet intensely pathetic Russian airs which give one a curious revelation of the profound, endless melancholy lurking in the national mind.
"'What do you think of it?' asked the baron of me when it ceased.
"'What I have always thought of such music—it is that of a hopeless people; poetical, crushed, and resigned.'
"He gave a loud laugh. 'Hear the analyst, the psychologue—why, man, it is a love-song! Is it possible that we, uncivilized, are truer realists than our hyper-cultured Western neighbours? Have we gone to the root of the matter, in our simple way?'
"The baroness got up abruptly. She looked white and spent; there were bistre circles round her eyes.
"'I am tired,' she said, with dry lips. 'You will excuse me, Mr. Marshfield, I must really go to bed.'
"'Go to bed, go to bed,' cried her husband gaily. Then, quoting in Russian from the song she had just sung: 'Sleep, my little soft white dove; my little innocent, tender lamb!'
"She hurried from the room. The baron laughed again, and, taking me familiarly by the arm led me to his own set of apartments for the promised smoke. He ensconced me in an armchair, placed cigars of every description, and a Turkish pipe ready to my hand and a little table on which stood cut glass flasks and beakers in tempting array.