Secret of the Night

&quote;BARINIA, the young stranger has arrived.&quote;&quote;Where is he?&quote;&quote;Oh, he is waiting at the lodge.&quote;&quote;I told you to show him to Natacha's sitting-room. Didn't you understand me, Ermolai?&quote;&quote;Pardon, Barinia, but the young stranger, when I asked to search him, as you directed, flatly refused to let me.&quote;&quote;Did you explain to him that everybody is searched before being allowed to enter, that it is the order, and that even my mother herself has submitted to it?&quote;&quote;I told him all that, Barinia; and I told him about madame your mother.&quote;&quote;What did he say to that?&quote;&quote;That he was not madame your mother. He acted angry.&quote;&quote;Well, let him come in without being searched.&quote;&quote;The Chief of Police won't like it.&quote;&quote;Do as I say.&quote;Ermolai bowed and returned to the garden. The &quote;barinia&quote; left the veranda, where she had come for this conversation with the old servant of General Trebassof, her husband, and returned to the dining-room in the datcha des Iles, where the gay Councilor Ivan Petrovitch was regaling his amused associates with his latest exploit at Cubat's resort. They were a noisy company, and certainly the quietest among them was not the general, who nursed on a sofa the leg which still held him captive after the recent attack, that to his old coachman and his two piebald horses had proved fatal. The story of the always-amiable Ivan Petrovitch (a lively, little, elderly man with his head bald as an egg) was about the evening before. After having, as he said, &quote;recure la bouche&quote; for these gentlemen spoke French like their own language and used it among themselves to keep their servants from understanding-after having wet his whistle with a large glass of sparkling rosy French wine, he cried: