Page:Whyte-Melville--Bones and I.djvu/91

 unfeeling tone not like her usual voice, 'Que voulez-vous? Enfin, c'est plus fort que moi!'

"The Russian put her into her sledge, for there was a foot of snow in the streets, and Count V walked home through it, with a smile on his face and his head up, looking strangely elated, I thought, for a man, the last strand of whose moorings had lately parted and left him adrift.

"I had not then learned there is no temporary stimulant so powerful as despair, no tonic so reviving as parti pris.

"Next day, lounging into the Chancellerie of the Embassy for my usual gossip, I found little Hughes, an unpaid attaché (who earned, indeed, just as much as he received), holding forth with considerable spirit and energy.

" 'Curse him!' said this indomitable young Briton. 'If it had been swords, I should like to have fought him myself. I