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 any one you liked: whether you asked her to marry you; and what she said.”

“I can tell you whether I found any one 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;