precious.

"'Indeed they are,' agreed the awed Tomassov. 'Good-bye then. I have
no word of thanks to equal your generosity; but if ever I have an
opportunity, I swear it, you may command my life....'

"But the Frenchman retreated, had already vanished in the dark lonely
street. Tomassov was alone, and then he did not waste any of the
precious minutes of that night.

"See how people's mere gossip and idle talk pass into history. In all
the memoirs of the time if you read them you will find it stated that
our envoy had a warning from some highly placed woman who was in love
with him. Of course it's known that he had successes with women, and in
the highest spheres, too, but the truth is that the person who warned
him was no other than our simple Tomassov--an altogether different sort
of lover from himself.

"This then is the secret of our Emperor's representative's escape
from arrest. He and all his official household got out of France all
right--as history records.

"And amongst that household there was our Tomassov of course. He had,
in the words of the French officer, the soul of a warrior. And what more
desolate prospect for a man with such a soul than to be imprisoned
on the eve of war; to be cut off from his country in danger, from his
military family, from his duty, from honour, and--well--from glory, too.

"Tomassov used to shudder at the mere thought of the moral torture he
had escaped; and he nursed in his heart a boundless gratitude to the two