“Did he at least bear away a feather in his beak as a token of peace and good will toward woman?” queried a remarkably tall and handsome man still very much on the right side of forty, who was known far and wide as a hardened misogynist, and wore the Cross of St. George upon his tunic--in commemoration, his compeers alleged, of his many victories over the dragon as represented by the fair sex. “No; but he has come back, doubtless with an olive branch to make us forgive his desertion. Ah, my friends, my dear friends!” cried Zàptine; “he owed us this apology for neglecting our sisters and cousins in order to annex the most beautiful woman out of Russia! Let us therefore drink to his ever-increasing felicity, now that he _has_ apologized.” “I have done nothing of the sort!” Basil tried to assert, but his voice was drowned by laughter, and with a serio-comic gesture he sat down again. And then there followed a general hurrah and loud calls for a “monster” punch to honor the toast, and presently the beverage made its appearance, flaming like all the fires of the lower regions in an immense silver “crater,” embossed with the arms of the club, and flanked by little silver bowls marked in the same fashion. Without losing a moment Zàptine seized hold of the great ladle and began to make the punch dance--as he termed the operation. “Ah!” the Chevalier-de-St. George declaimed. “Now we shall feel quite at home! No ‘_Wein, Weib, und Gesang_’ for me! Punch, and good old comrades to swallow it at command, that’s the only real thing!” “Pfuhh ... h!” retorted Zàptine, assiduously stirring the Vesuvius before him. “Don’t listen to him, brothers; he is going to talk nonsense!” “Nonsense! I? You don’t know me! Is it nonsense to deprive oneself of the anxieties, the troubles, the imprisonment, and other delights of home rule? I am a sensible man, and intend to remain my own master, for ever and for ever--as in the old song, whatever it’s entitled. Petticoats! Don’t talk to me of them. It makes me sweat icicles to think of them!” “How do you account, then,” put in Mourièff, scornfully, “for the charming _Lesghise_, who through some miracle worked by your Honor, finally passed from the high rank of a Caucasian prisoner of state to that of one of Petersburg’s most admired _demi-mondaines_? Eh? Answer that if you can?” There was a roar of laughter, in which even Basil joined as frankly as did the culprit himself. “Caucasus is Caucasus,” he retorted, “and _ennui_ with a capital letter is its overlord. One is not responsible for anything one does there, I assure you.” “An agreeable and eminently convenient theory,” Basil put in. “But look here; don’t tease him, Mourièff; he did his duty gallantly by the lady in freeing her from oppression and bondage, as also by affording her the chance of new fields to conquer.” “She has certainly made admirable use of her opportunities! You know that Grand-Duke....”