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Michael sat alone with his mother in the sitting-room which was also a bedroom. The two girls had gone to bed already, Tania taking three inches of candle with her to read a chapter of Anna Karenina, in which she was absorbed. It was one of those precious possessions which she had stuffed into her bundle on the flight from the Villa Mimosa. Miss Browne was still out of doors, partly for the purpose of letting the girls get undressed before she turned in, and partly because she wanted to walk down to the beach again and see the moonlight on the water.

Through the open window of the attic-room came the eternal tinkle of a balalaika. Down there on the plot of grass in front of the villa some of the refugees were strolling about and talking. Now and again a woman’s light laugh could be heard, and the deep murmur of men’s voices talking quietly.

Michael was playing his violin very softly with muted strings—a difficult bit of fingering, as an exercise. Once or twice he glanced over to his mother who was sitting on the edge of his bed doing some needlework—mending one of Olga’s chemises. There was a touch of grey in her fair Austrian hair. It was the first time Michael had noticed that. And he noticed that there were little lines about her mouth which had not been there a year ago. Her hands were white and delicate—lovely hands, thought Michael, as her needle went in and out of the bit of linen. Presently she raised her head and their eyes met.

“What are you thinking about, my dear?” she asked.

Michael put his bow in its case, still holding the violin under his chin.

“I’m wondering what’s going to happen to us. I’m always wondering. We can’t stay here for ever.”

“No,” said his mother. “We shall have to make plans.”

“What kind of plans?” asked Michael.

Anna Markova laid down her needlework.

“The first thing is to write to our relations and find out whether they are still alive. There’s my sister Josephine—Aunt Seppi—I’ve often told you about her—her gaiety—what lovely times we used to have as girls in Vienna. Uncle Rudi used to be so kind, and I remember how he used to take us to the Opera when he first fell in love with dear Seppi. Their boy and girl must be nearly as old as Olga and Tania.”

Michael was thoughtful again.

“They might put us up for a while. Uncle Rudi might help me to get work.”

“I’m longing to get a letter from Seppi,” said his mother. “I wrote two days ago. It will take a week perhaps before an answer comes.”

Michael was silent again for a few minutes. Then he blurted out something which frightened his mother.

“I was talking to Sacha Dolin. He too has a relative in Vienna. He says the Austrian gentlefolk are all ruined. Nearly everyone was starving in Vienna after the War, he says. There was no light or fuel. The children died like flies. It was almost as bad as Russia. Perhaps Aunt Seppi won’t be able to help us much. Perhaps she’s dead.”

Anna Markova gave a little cry.

“There is no happiness left in the world. The War killed the joy of life everywhere.”

“Courage, little mother!” said Michael.

He went across to the bed on which his mother was sitting and put an arm round her shoulder and his face against her cheek.

She forced herself to smile and touched his hair with a caressing hand.

“I know, I know. I must have courage. And I ought to be grateful for all that I have left. You, and Olga, and Tania. It’s wicked of me to be so weak and miserable when my three treasures are still alive.”

Michael took his arm from her shoulder and presently lit a cigarette—a habit he had picked up as a soldier of Wrangel’s army.

“The point is,” he said, “what other treasures have you kept, mother? Did you bring away anything worth a little money for a rainy day? Olga and Tania stuffed their bags with rubbish.”

Anna Markova sat very still for a moment, and then looked up at her son.

“I hid a few things,” she said. “They’re very precious. I hardly like to take them out of their hiding-place. And I can hardly bear to part with them until we are really desperate.”

“Let me have a look, mother,” said Michael.

She went to one of the bags and rummaged about in its depths and brought out some old shirts, rolled up tightly. They were Michael’s old shirts, out of which he had grown.

“No one would suspect treasures in these rags,” he said with a laugh. “In any case, we have escaped from Russia and Red bandits and gipsy thieves.”

“There are thieves everywhere,” said Anna Markova. “Over there, in Constantinople, there is a dreadful riff-raff, I am told.”

“There certainly is,” agreed Michael, who had gone over to Constantinople several times with Tania and Olga.

“Lock the door for a moment,” said his mother.

She waited until the door was locked and then with nervous fingers unrolled the shirts. Some old socks were tied up in them. She took from them some little glittering things which she put on the deal table where a candle was burning.

Michael touched them. He took up some of them and held them in the palm of his hand nearer to the candlelight.

“They look good,” he said. “They might be worth something. When we leave Prinkipo we needn’t starve to death.”

There were a dozen rings on the table and three in the palm of his hand. They had little jewels in them—pearls and emeralds and rubies. One of them had a single diamond in which there was a little world of light.

“They’re very old,” whispered his mother. “They’re eighteenth century. They belonged to my Austrian family.”

“God bless your Austrian ancestors,” said Michael, with a smile in his eyes. “How little they knew that their descendants would be Russian refugees, wondering how much an Armenian moneylender would advance for these trinkets.”

His mother glanced nervously at the door, as though thieves might enter at any moment. She spoke again in a whisper.

“There’s something here which is beyond all money, Michael. I should weep if we had to sell it.”

She put her fingers into another old sock and took out a little miniature set in diamonds.

“Yes,” said Michael. “I remember it.”

He gazed at it gravely—at a face beautifully painted on ivory. It was the face of a bearded man with soft eyes who had been the Czar of Russia. He had given it to Michael’s mother when she had come to St. Petersburg as a bride.

“Perhaps we shan’t need to sell it,” he said. “Somewhere in the world I shall find a place so that I can keep you and the two girls.”

“God will help us,” said Anna Markova, who believed in God.

There was a tap at the door and she clutched her treasures and thrust them between the shirts. Michael laughed at her sudden terror.

“It’s only Miss Browne,” he said, going to the door.

“Sorry to intrude,” said Elizabeth Browne, very brightly. “You ought to go out and enjoy the moonlight, Michael. One can see the domes of the mosques in Stamboul like little snow-clouds far away.”

She came into the dim room lit only by one candle. On the table still was the miniature set in diamonds.

“I shouldn’t leave that lying about,” she said in her practical way.

“We’ve been counting our treasures,” explained Michael. “They’re our life insurance.”

Miss Browne laughed, but there was pity in her eyes.

“Poor dears! I don’t know what’s going to happen to you all.”

She stooped down and kissed the hand of Countess Markova.

“Sleep well and don’t worry,” she said. “Now I suppose I must go and prod my elbow in Olga’s back. She always takes more than her fair share of the bed.”

Presently there was a squeal from the next room. Olga was having a tussle with Miss Browne who had been her governess.

“The English,” said Michael, “are very remarkable, if they are all like Miss Browne. They never lose their self-control. They take everything calmly and make a joke of it.”

“She has been a great comfort to us,” said Anna Markova.

She kissed Michael on the forehead and left him, to go to her own room where she slept with Tania.

Michael sat on the edge of his truckle-bed and took off one of his boots. It was quite a time before he took off the other. In that space of time he thought very deeply about the unknown life which lay ahead. It seemed to him that he had nothing to offer the world but a few tunes played not too well on an old fiddle, and there were thousands of Russian refugees who could do the same thing rather better. He had come late for this kind of thing. Denikin’s crowd were already in Budapest and Vienna and Berlin and Paris, playing in restaurants and cabarets, where Cossacks danced with knives in their mouths and Russian women sang gipsy songs, and ex-officers of the Imperial Army played the balalaika to foreign tourists. How could he protect his mother from poverty and starvation? How could he find food and clothing for Olga and Tania? How could he educate himself and do something worth while in life?

Sometimes he had had boyish dreams of fame and fortune. Sometimes he had dreams of love, and always there was one girl in his dreams. It was Vera Sokolova whom he had once kissed under a Christmas tree in St. Petersburg. They had met in Moscow before the Red Revolution in which her father had been killed. They had talked a lot about life. They understood each other. Once she had wept and he had put his arms about her and something had stirred in him, a kind of passion, indescribable and mystical—a kind of pain and a kind of joy. Now she was dancing over in Constantinople, as he had heard from one of his friends. She danced in a leopard skin, showing the grace of her body to Turks and Armenians and rough seamen from the British and American fleets. He hated the idea of it.

Michael took off his other boot and let it fall with a thud on the bare boards.