"'There is a fate that controls us,' she said reverently. 'Come at seven.'

"When the hour arrived I sent my card to her apartment, and was ushered
into a small room with a curtain-closed door opening out into a larger
salon, through which I caught glimpses of a table spread with glass and
silver. Polaff, rigid and perpendicular, received me with a stiff, formal
recognition. I do not think he quite understood, nor altogether liked, his
mistress's chance acquaintance. In a moment she entered from a door
opposite, still in her black garments with the nun's cuffs and broad
collar. Extending her hand graciously, she said:--

"'You have slept since I left you this morning. I see it in your face. I
am so glad. And I too. I have rested all day. It was so good of you to
come.'

"There was no change in her manner; the same frank, trustful look in her
eyes, the same anxious concern about me. When dinner was announced she
placed me beside her, Polaff standing behind her chair, and the other
attendants serving.

"The talk drifted again into my own life, she interrupting with pointed
questions, and making me repeat again and again the stories I told her of
our humble home. She must learn them herself to tell them to her own
people, she said. It was all so strange and new to her, so simple and so
genuine. With the coffee she fell to talking of her own home, the
despotism of Russia, the death of her father, the forcing of her brothers
into the army. Still holding her cup in her hands, she began pacing up and
down, her eyes on the floor (we were alone, Polaff having retired). Then
stopping in front of me, and with an earnestness that startled me:--