Entering the house, Mila hunted up some cold meat, and with fresh tea
and stale bread they were contented. The formidable pyrotechnist did not
appear, and so the young people enjoyed the day in each other's company.
She conducted him like a river through the lands of sociology,
Dostoïewsky, and Chopin. She played, but made him sit in the hall, for
the piano was in her private room. And then they began to exchange
confidences. It was dusk before the prince returned, in the attire of a
workingman, his face and hands covered with soot and grease. A hard
day's labour, he said, and did not seem surprised to see Shannon.

After supper he asked Gerald if he would smoke a pipe with him in his
laboratory. Mila must have bored him enough by this time! They lighted
their pipes; but Mila refused to be sent away. She sat down beside her
uncle and put her elbows on the table--white, strong arms she had, and
Gerald only took his eyes from their pleasing contemplation to lift them
to hers. He was fast losing what little prudence he had; he was a Celt,
and he felt that he had known Mila for a century.

"Young man," said Prince Karospina, sharply, "you have the message I
gave you last night! Well--and you will say _no_, to my beloved friend
K., without knowing why. And you will think that you have been dealing
with a man whose hard head has turned to the mush of human kindness,--an
altruist. Ah! I know how you fellows despise the word. But what have
Kropotkin, Elisée Reclus, Jean Grave, or the rest accomplished? To
build up, not to tear down, should be the object of the scientific
anarch. Stop! You need not say the earth has to be levelled and ploughed
before sowing the seed. That suits turnip fields, not the garden of
humanity. Educate the downtrodden into liberty, is my message, not the
slaughtering of monarchs. How am I going to go about it? Ah! that's my