I told her, and an exclamation of relief involuntarily escaped her. This did not strike me as peculiar at the time, but I recollected the incident afterwards, and was much puzzled at its significance.
“Do they know his name?” she asked eagerly.
“No. There was nothing to serve as a clue to his identity.”
“Poor fellow!” she sighed sympathetically. “I wonder who he was.”
Then our conversation turned upon other topics. We smoked several cigarettes, and, after remaining an hour, I bade her adieu and departed, half bewitched by her grace and beauty.
When, however, I called a week later and gave the usual four tugs at the bell, my summons remained unanswered. A dozen times I repeated it, but with the same effect, until a postman who chanced to pass informed me that the occupants had gone away suddenly five days before and left no address.
Surprised at this hurried departure, I walked to the house of Grigorovitch, about half a mile distant, and told him of my friends and their flight.
“Well,” he said, with a smile, when I had told him their name, and explained the various circumstances, “I shrewdly suspect you’ve been tricked. I know no one by the name of Souvaroff. He is certainly not one of Us, and it is equally certain that he got you to insert that extraordinary paragraph by a very neat ruse.”
And he laughed heartily, enjoying a joke that I confess I was unable to appreciate.