Salvières gave a sharp sigh, then he laughed; but his laugh was not easy, and at last he spread out both arms in a gesture almost of discouragement. “You are letting yourself be driven into an _impasse_, my dear Basil,” he said, gravely. “A very dangerous proceeding. You ask me to help you. You know that I’m only too ready to do so. But how the deuce am I to get about it? Let me see. How long have you been at Tverna now?” “A little over two months.” “That all! Well, you surely did not expect a _mondaine_ like your wife to get accustomed to your citadel in so short a time. Still, what do you say to Tatiana and myself coming to stay for a couple of weeks or so with you? Tatiana is the most capable manager ever created for the joy of this world, and her advice might work wonders. She is to the manner born, and I think she wouldn’t mind teaching your beautiful Laurence how to go about it on an estate as large and difficult to rule as a whole province.” Basil turned upon Salvières a pair of rather hopeless eyes. “Do you think they would go well in double harness, those two?” he asked, diffidently. “Besides, Laurence is a little impatient of advice.” Salvières reflected before replying. “I dare say! And whether she would get along with Tatiana--that’s the question!” He knocked the ashes out of his cold pipe, and thoughtfully replaced this object of his affections in its chamois-lined _étui_. “I bought this delightful article on the Jarozolimskà in Warsaw,” he casually remarked, “where it is claimed that the shops are better than in Paris. Lord! Moreover, the man who sold it to me said, with a lugubrious grin on his foolish Teutonic face, that this was the finest pipe ever made; and he was right, curiously enough, for I never had a better one. However, to return to our muttons, or rather to our lambkins: I’m afraid, Basil, that perhaps you are by way of building molehills into very tall mountains. You would scarcely have enjoyed a strong-minded, assertive wife--a leader at home and afield, violently interested in politics of every caliber, a platform orator, bowing from the waist up to admiring multitudes--_i. e._, the sort that so many unfortunate husbands are trying to get used to nowadays.” Basil could not restrain a laugh. “My dear fellow,” he said, “I do not ask so much. You know very well that I consider men who help women to make fools of themselves unmanly crawlers. But between that and complete indifference to the masses--since you force me to adopt that jargon--there is a yawning gulf.” “I dare say,” Salvières was beginning, when Countess Chouróff’s deep bass made itself heard at the door, and that lady, followed by four yards of purple-velvet draperies, advanced into the room and faced the two absconders.