sir?’ It is a small phrase very frequent with you; and which many a time has drawn me on and on through interminable talk: I don’t very well know why.”
“I mean—What next? How did you proceed? What came of such an event?”
“Precisely! and what do you wish to know now?”
“Whether you found anyone you liked: whether you asked her to marry you; and what she said.”
“I can tell you whether I found anyone I liked, and whether I asked her to marry me: but what she said is yet to be recorded in the book of Fate. For ten long years I roved about, living first in one capital, then another: sometimes in St. Petersburg; oftener in Paris; occasionally in Rome, Naples, and Florence. Provided with plenty of money and the passport of an old name, I could choose my own society: no circles were closed against me. I sought my ideal of a