“You came to vouch for his identity?” inquired Razumov.

“Yes.  Something of the kind.  Fifteen years of a life like his make changes in a man.  Lonely, like a crow in a strange country.  When I think of Yakovlitch before he went to America—­”

The softness of the low tone caused Razumov to glance at her sideways.  She sighed; her black eyes were looking away; she had plunged the fingers of her right hand deep into the mass of nearly white hair, and stirred them there absently.  When she withdrew her hand the little hat perched on the top of her head remained slightly tilted, with a queer inquisitive effect, contrasting strongly with the reminiscent murmur that escaped her.

“We were not in our first youth even then.  But a man is a child always.”

Razumov thought suddenly, “They have been living together.”  Then aloud—­

“Why didn’t you follow him to America?” he asked point-blank.

She looked up at him with a perturbed air.

“Don’t you remember what was going on fifteen years ago?  It was a time of activity.  The Revolution has its history by this time.  You are in it and yet you don’t seem to know it.  Yakovlitch went away then on a mission; I went back to Russia.  It had to be so.  Afterwards there was nothing for him to come back to.”

“Ah! indeed,” muttered Razumov, with affected surprise.  “Nothing!”

“What are you trying to insinuate” she exclaimed quickly.  “Well, and what then if he did get discouraged a little....”

“He looks like a Yankee, with that goatee hanging from his chin.  A regular Uncle Sam,” growled Razumov.  “Well, and you?  You who went to Russia?  You did not get discouraged.”

“Never mind.  Yakovlitch is a man who cannot be doubted.  He, at any rate, is the right sort.”

Her black, penetrating gaze remained fixed upon Razumov while she spoke, and for a moment afterwards.

“Pardon me,” Razumov inquired coldly, “but does it mean that you, for instance, think that I am not the right sort?”

She made no protest, gave no sign of having heard the question; she continued looking at him in a manner which he judged not to be absolutely unfriendly.  In Zurich when he passed through she had taken him under her charge, in a way, and was with him from morning till night during his stay of two days.  She took him round to see several people.  At first she talked to him a great deal and rather unreservedly, but always avoiding all reference to herself; towards the middle of the second day she fell silent, attending him zealously as before, and even seeing him off at the railway station, where she pressed his hand firmly through the lowered carriage window, and, stepping back without a word, waited till the train moved.  He had noticed that she was treated with quiet regard.  He knew nothing of her parentage, nothing of her private history or political record; he judged her from his own private point of view, as being a distinct danger in his path.  “Judged” is not perhaps the right word.  It was more of a feeling, the summing up of slight impressions aided by the discovery that he could not despise her as he despised all the others.  He had not expected to see her again so soon.