In the early part of the war Russia did not try to gain anything at the expense of Germany but consistently applied herself to the task of enriching herself at the expense of England. Imperial Russia as an ally has constantly been fighting England and done the Allied cause more damage than the German army. But Imperial Russia wrote her own death sentence by her treachery. There was a revolution in Russia ... But I anticipate. * * * * * That is the story of my little expedition into Russia—and of what it brought about. As for me, I was sent back to Gross Lichterfelde, where I abruptly ceased to be a young prince, and became once more a humble cadet. But only to outside eyes. Dazzled by the success of my first mission, I regarded myself as a superman among the cadets. Life loomed romantically before me. I told myself that I was to consort with princes and beautiful noblewomen and to spend money lavishly. The future seemed to promise a career that was the merriest, maddest, for which a man could hope. I laugh sometimes now when I think of the dreams I had in those days. I was soon to learn that the life which fate had thrust upon me was set with traps and pitfalls which might not easily be escaped. I was to learn many lessons and to know much suffering; and I was to discover that the finding of my “document” was only the beginning of a chain of events that were to control my whole life—and that its influence over my career had not ended. But at that time I was all hopes and rosy dreams—of my future, of myself, occasionally of Nevshka. Nevshka. Is she still as charming as ever? CHAPTER III. _Of what comes of leaving important papers exposed. I look and talk indiscreetly—and a man dies._ In spite of my dreams and extreme self-satisfaction, I found the atmosphere of Gross Lichterfelde as drab and monotonous as ever it had been before my masquerade. Discipline sits lightly upon one who is accustomed to it solely, but to me, fresh from a glorious fortnight of intrigue and festivity, it was doubly galling. Yet there was one avenue of escape open to me, that was denied my fellows, for I was required to pay a weekly visit to my tutor in the Wilhelmstrasse, there to continue my studies in the art of diplomatic intrigue. It is a significant comment upon the life at Gross Lichterfelde that I could regard these visits as a kind of relaxation. Surely no drill-master was ever so exacting as this tutor of mine. And yet, despite his dryness and the complete lack of cordiality in his manner, there was somewhere the gleam of romance about him. To me he seemed, in a strangely inappropriate way, an incarnation of one of those old masters of intrigue who had been my heroes in former days at home; and my imagination distorted him into a gigantic, shadowy being, mysterious, inflexible and potentially sinister.