Oliver shook his head, with compressed lips.

“Nothing definite,” he said. “Even less than usual. Listen.”

He took up the green sheet and began to read aloud as the girl sat down in a window-seat on his left.

She was a very charming-looking creature, tall and slender, with serious, ardent grey eyes, firm red lips, and a beautiful carriage of head and shoulders. She had walked slowly across the room as Oliver took up the paper, and now sat back in her brown dress in a very graceful and stately attitude. She seemed to listen with a deliberate kind of patience; but her eyes flickered with interest.

“‘Irkutsk—April fourteen—Yesterday—as—usual—But—rumoured— defection—from—Sufi—party—Troops—continue—gathering— Felsenburgh—addressed—Buddhist—crowd—Attempt—on—Llama—last— Friday—work—of—Anarchists—Felsenburgh—leaving—for—Moscow—as —arranged—he....’ There—that is absolutely all,” ended Oliver dispiritedly. “It’s interrupted as usual.”

The girl began to swing a foot.

“I don’t understand in the least,” she said. “Who is Felsenburgh, after all?”

“My dear child, that is what all the world is asking. Nothing is known except that he was included in the American deputation at the last moment. The Herald published his life last week; but it has been contradicted. It is certain that he is quite a young man, and that he has been quite obscure until now.”

“Well, he is not obscure now,” observed the girl.

“I know; it seems as if he were running the whole thing. One never hears a word of the others. It’s lucky he’s on the right side.”

“And what do you think?”

Oliver turned vacant eyes again out of the window.

“I think it is touch and go,” he said. “The only remarkable thing is that here hardly anybody seems to realise it. It’s too big for the imagination, I suppose. There is no doubt that the East has been preparing for a descent on Europe for these last five years. They have only been checked by America; and this is one last attempt to stop them. But why Felsenburgh should come to the front—-” he broke off. “He must be a good linguist, at any rate. This is at least the fifth crowd he has addressed; perhaps he is just the American interpreter. Christ! I wonder who he is.”

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