received me with the deference due to an expected guest and expressed the
master's regret for his enforced absence till dinner time. I traversed
vast rooms, each more sumptuous than the last, feeling the strangeness of
the contrast between the outer desolation and this sybaritic excess of
luxury growing ever more strongly upon me; caught a glimpse of a picture
gallery, where peculiar yet admirably executed latter-day French pictures
hung side by side with ferocious boar hunts of Snyder and such kin; and,
at length, was ushered into a most cheerful room, modern to excess in its
comfortable promise, where, in addition to the tall stove necessary for
warmth, there burned on an open hearth a vastly pleasant fire of resinous
logs, and where, on a low table, awaited me a dainty service of fragrant
Russian tea.

"My impression of utter novelty seemed somehow enhanced by this unexpected
refinement in the heart of the solitudes and in such a rugged shell, and
yet, when I came to reflect, it was only characteristic of my cosmopolitan
host. But another surprise was in store for me.

"When I had recovered bodily warmth and mental equilibrium in my downy
armchair, before the roaring logs, and during the delicious absorption of
my second glass of tea, I turned my attention to the French valet,
evidently the baron's own man, who was deftly unpacking my portmanteau,
and who, unless my practiced eye deceived me, asked for nothing better
than to entertain me with agreeable conversation the while.

"'Your master is out, then?' quoth I, knowing that the most trivial remark
would suffice to start him.

"True, Monseigneur was out; he was desolated in despair (this with the
national amiable and imaginative instinct); 'but it was doubtless