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He threw up his hands and shoulders.

“Americans and English are the same and like mad risks. But I would not do this—no, not for the crown of Russia. I know what I know.”

“And I do it for the love of the thing, and I suppose that’s about the difference between us.”

“Monsieur is monsieur,” he replied with a comical, lachrymose air. “But you will need to be very cautious. You have friends in Petersburg, probably?”

“No, indeed. No one knows of my presence here.”

“That is strange—but perhaps—convenient. You would not be missed.”

“No, not by a soul except here in the Palace.”

He smiled mysteriously.

“If you are discovered, m’sieur, I should not let that fact be known. I should speak of many. A friendless man may be a helpless one.”

“You have a pleasant imagination, Pierre.”

“Russia is not France, m’sieur, nor America,” he replied, cryptically, with so lugubrious an air that I smiled.

It was not a cheerful send-off, and in the carriage I told old Kalkov what his man had said.

“Pierre is a good valet but a fool,” he answered with a grunt. “He had his nerves twisted once in a Nihilist row, and ever since has seen a Nihilist conspiracy in every trouble.”