Madame Boleski ascended leisurely the shallow stairs--there was no lift--and rang her three short rings, which Peter, the Russian servant, was accustomed to expect. The door was opened at once, and she was taken through the quaint square hall into the master's own sitting-room, a richly sombre place of oak boiserie and old crimson silk. Verisschenzko was writing and just glanced up while he murmured Napoleon's famous order to Mademoiselle George--but Harietta Boleski pushed out her full underlip and sat down in a deep armchair. "No--not this evening, I have only a moment. I have merely come, Stepan, you darling, to tell you that I have something interesting to say." "Not possible!" and he carefully sealed down a letter he had been writing and put it ready to be posted. Then he came over and took some cigarettes from a Faberger enamel box and offered her one. Harietta smoked most of the day but she refused now. "You have come, not for pleasure, but to talk! Sapristi! I am duly amazed!" Another woman would have been insulted at the tone and the insinuation in the words, but not so Harietta. She did not pretend to have a brain, that was one of her strong points, and she understood and appreciated the crudest methods, so long as their end was for the pleasure of herself. She nodded, and that was all. Verisschenzko threw himself into the opposite chair, his yellow-green eyes full of a mocking light. "I have seen a brooch even finer than the ruby ring at Cartier's just now--I thought perhaps if I were very pleased with you, it might be yours." Harietta bounded from her chair and sat upon his knee. "You perfect angel, Stepan, I adore you!" she said. He did not return the caresses at all, but just ordered: "Now talk." She spoke rapidly, and he listened intently. He was weighing her words and searching into their truth. He decided that for some reason of her own she was not lying--and in any case it did not matter if she were not, because he had resources at his command which would enable him to test the information, and if it were true it would be worth the brooch. "She has been wounded in some way, probably physically, since nothing less material would affect her. Physically and in her vanity--but who can have done it?" the Russian asked himself. "Who is her German correspondent? This I must discover--but since it is the first time she has knowingly given me information, it proves some revenge in her goat's brain. Now is the time to obtain the most." He encircled her with his arm and kissed her with less contemptuous brutality than usual, and he told her that she was a lovely creature, and the desire of all men--while he appeared to attach little importance to the information she vouchsafed, asking no questions and re-lighting a cigarette. This forced her to be more explicit, and at last all that she meant to communicate was exposed.