the baron broke forth into loud applause. 'Brava, brava! that was really
said _con amore_. A delicious love song, delicious--but French! You must
sing one of our Slav melodies for Marshfield before you allow us to go and
smoke.'

"She started from her reverie with a flush, and after a pause struck
slowly a few simple chords, then began one of those strangely sweet, yet
intensely pathetic Russian airs, which give one a curious revelation of
the profound, endless melancholy lurking in the national mind.

"'What do you think of it?' asked the baron of me when it ceased.

"'What I have always thought of such music--it is that of a hopeless
people; poetical, crushed, and resigned.'

"He gave a loud laugh. 'Hear the analyst, the psychologue--why, man, it is
a love song! Is it possible that we, uncivilized, are truer realists than
our hypercultured Western neighbors? Have we gone to the root of the
matter, in our simple way?'

"The baroness got up abruptly. She looked white and spent; there were
bister circles round her eyes.

"'I am tired,' she said, with dry lips. 'You will excuse me, Mr.
Marshfield, I must really go to bed.'

"'Go to bed, go to bed,' cried her husband gayly. Then, quoting in Russian
from the song she had just sung: 'Sleep, my little soft white dove: my
little innocent tender lamb!' She hurried from the room. The baron laughed
again, and, taking me familiarly by the arm, led me to his own set of