"I imagine even you do not esteem parting with those whom one loves an
exhilarating pastime."

"But when it's so obviously for their own good..."

"Oh, I know!" Duchemin agreed without enthusiasm. "If anything should
happen to Karslake now, it would break Sonia's heart, but..."

"And after the part he played in that Vassilyevski show his lease of
life wouldn't be apt to be prolonged by staying on in England."

"I agree; but still--!" sighed Duchemin, throwing himself heavily into
a chair.

"Which," Wertheimer continued, standing, "is why we arranged to give
him that billet with the British Legation in Peking."

"Didn't know you had a hand in that," observed Duchemin, after
favouring the other with a morose stare.

"Oh, you can't trust me! When you get to know me better you'll find I'm
always like that--forever flitting hither and yon, bestowing benefits
and boons on the ungrateful, like any other giddy Providence."

"But one is not ungrateful," Duchemin insisted. "God knows I would
gladly have sped Karslake's emigration with Sonia to Van Dieman's Land
or Patagonia or where you will, if it promised to keep him out of the
way long enough for the Smolny Institute to forget him."