“Oh, a trifle! but since it was connected with our Guardsman, I’ll tell it to you in two words. It was about three years ago, if I am correct, on a bitter winter day--thus does the tale begin. Ha! Ha! I am quite a _raconteur_ in my humble way, I beg you to observe! Well, we were at the time keeping our eyes upon a certain Servian ‘Prince’--the nerve they display, those Servians, in affording themselves, while away from home, the luxury of titles which do not exist in their own land, is truly marvelous! But to proceed: we were, as I was saying, having this questionable personage--er--watched, in a discreet fashion--you understand--so when driving out for my airing, the fancy seized me to go to the Botanical Gardens. I had been informed that the ‘Noble’ Servian was in the habit of dropping in there--to admire the flowers, and meet--quite by accident, of course--a friend--or perchance two--also naturally quite by accident--do you see? So I told Yèfime--you remember my old Yèfime--to drive me there. From a good distance the whole mass of the gardens began to gleam against the sky like some gigantic jewel-case open to the sun-rays. We had had a hard frost, which had incased every branch and twig in crystal--I can see it before me now. I stopped the sleigh and passed up the board walk leading to the conservatories beneath those gently clinking branches, and, pursuing my idea, I entered the great glass vestibule, and from there went into the main house. The first whiff of moist, heavily perfumed air after that cruel cold outside--I can really still smell it--was a sort of voluptuous delight, and I followed a broad, pebbled path bordered on each side by hedges of twenty-five-foot camellias in full bloom. You know the place, and what a joy to the eye it is. Precious palms and tree-ferns growing free to the very top of the cupola ... orange and lemon adored orchids! Ah! What orchids--above regular thickets of gardenias--a paradise! After a while I came to the aerial staircase winding among all those lustrous plants, and reached the top where it communicates with the astounding lacy bridge that spans the whole length of this particular conservatory, and there I paused to lean a moment on the balustrade. Just below me on the balcony of the first landing were two people standing close together, a man and a woman; he tall, slimly built, but rather square-shouldered and straight as an arrow. The collar of his long fur coat was raised--in that heat, mind you! She, I could see, was extremely _élégante_, and heavily veiled. Both my natural and my official curiosity were aroused I confess, and, making myself as small as the good God ever permits me to be, I bent cautiously and listened. They were whispering, and so absorbed in one another that they had not heard my feet on the metal steps, and only a few disconnected words reached me. It struck me as peculiar that they were speaking English, for I greatly doubted whether my Servian would