Mr. Nikolai had taken a small apartment, where Joan and her husband and occasionally others dined with him, or dropped in for a glass of tea in the Russian fashion and an hour of two of music afterwards. Nikolai, true to the instinct of his race, never made even a temporary home without music in it. He had, in addition to a piano, various instruments collected in different lands, among them a balalaika upon which the servant Sacha could sometimes be induced to play a shy accompaniment to peasant ballads. But Archie had never come there without Joan; and so one day when he dropped in alone, ostensibly to "hear the Rooshian pick his banjo," Nikolai felt a surprise that he was careful not to show. His trained eyes detected signs of distress in Archie which others, including his wife, had failed to notice. The beaming smile did not conceal from Nikolai a little anxious pucker between the brows, a nervous twitching of the big freckled hands. The writer was not unused to being taken into the confidence of troubled people. It was one of the things that compensated for the enforced solitude of his life, such an occasional glimpse into the secret hearts of his fellow-men. It is an odd fact that writers and philosophers and even poets, all people who live necessarily a little apart from their kind, are frequently chosen as confessors by those who feel the need of confession. So Nikolai asked no questions, sure that a friendly silence and a good cigar would produce results. Nor did he ring for Sacha and the "banjo." At length Archie blurted out without preliminaries: "Joan isn't happy, Mr. Nikolai. I guess you've noticed that! She hasn't been for a long while. I'm not sure she ever was.--I s'pose I was a fool to think a man like me could make her happy." "It is a large order for any one human being to make another human being happy, Blair." "But you could have!" Neither spoke for a few minutes. Nikolai made no pretense of not understanding. Only a slight flush came momentarily into his face, and left it paler by contrast. "I am not sure," he said at last. "But I should have liked to try." "Of course! I knew that when you cabled us to wait till you came--But Joan don't know it yet. Funny, isn't it, when she's so smart? She thinks you feel toward her like a cross between a teacher and a fond father.--'Father'--my eye! She don't catch you lookin' at her sometimes the way I do!" "Do I--look at her?" Archie nodded expressively. "I suppose I understand, because I'm in love myself. And she don't"--he swallowed hard--"because she isn't." "Not yet, perhaps," said the other slowly. "Give her time, my boy." "Time? I've given her time." Archie heaved a great sigh. "Now I mean to give her something else. I mean to give her a chance. She never really had a chance before, Mr. Nikolai. I--I kind of got her off her guard, when she was takin' the count. It wasn't sporting of me."