Pierre, reddening slightly, beckoned Gwendolen across the room. They stood staring out across the wide brown lawn. Mr. Todd and his assistant left the room together. Above the Buddhist garment she was desecrating, Mrs. Todd murmured plaintively, "I've known it all along,--though Count Breakitoff in Washington assured me it could not come. I was certain that just as soon as I got over here the horrid thing would break out. Just suppose the Russians capture Tokio! They boast already that they will dictate terms of peace in Tokio before next Christmas day, and the Russian troops are like wild beasts." Here she gave a shudder, and raised her voice. "Oh, Gwendolen, why did we leave Washington, or even our peaceful Western home? I'd give ten thousand dollars to be set down right now in a good Christian wheat-field. This is awful, simply _awful_!" "And I think it glorious, simply glorious!" sang Gwendolen from the window. "Already the prospect tingles in my veins. It is better than a coming-out party, better than auto-mobiling on a road of green glass! I feel that delicious, tragic, matinée feeling I used to have as a child, just as the curtain starts to rise." "And you are not afraid something is going to happen?" asked Mrs. Todd. "I'm only afraid that something isn't going to happen," returned the intrepid one. Pierre sauntered toward the hearth. "I come of a fighting race, yet now I share Madame's views rather than those of her spirited daughter. This war means a new gulf between Yuki and me." Gwendolen's face sobered. "I've thought of that. You are right. It means a wider gulf; it ought to mean a wider gulf." Pierre moved nearer the fire and spread his delicate hands to the flame. "Your tone, Mademoiselle," he began with a most pathetic attempt at lightness, "might imply that the gulf is already of sufficient width to admit despair." Gwendolen threw back her head and looked at him from under long lashes. "I didn't say so," returned she. "Speech is the least satisfactory form of intelligent communication," answered Pierre, still trying to smile himself and her into the delusion that he was but partly in earnest. "Did you see the way that Yuki's father watched us all last night?" asked the girl, irrelevantly. "No, I cannot say I bestowed much attention. Whenever possible, I keep my eyes from unpleasing objects." "You do well, Pierre," asserted Mrs. Todd; "especially in this case. I was next him most of the time, and though I did not look, I have acquired neuralgia in the shoulder which was nearest him." "He wasn't what one would call exactly--gushing," mused Gwendolen. She seated herself now, and fell into a sort of reverie, dropping her chin and catching it in one hand,--a gesture ludicrously like Mr. Todd. Pierre's glance into her face added, it would seem, to his uneasiness. "I presume it is only war that has brought Prince Hagané to call so promptly," said he, tentatively, with a note of challenge in his voice.