At once Mr Verloc passed his hand over his hair. A slight perspiration had broken out of his forehead. He let the air escape from his pursed-up lips like a man blowing at a spoonful of hot soup. But when the servant in brown appeared at the door silently, Mr Verloc had not moved an inch from the place he had occupied throughout the interview. He had remained motionless, as if feeling himself surrounded by pitfalls.

He walked along a passage lighted by a lonely gas-jet, then up a flight of winding stairs, and through a glazed and cheerful corridor on the first floor. The footman threw open a door, and stood aside. The feet of Mr Verloc felt a thick carpet. The room was large, with three windows; and a young man with a shaven, big face, sitting in a roomy armchair before a vast mahogany writing-table, said in French to the Chancellor d'Ambassade, who was going out with the papers in his hand:

`You are quite right, mon cher. He's fat - the animal.'

Mr Vladimir, First Secretary, had a drawing-room reputation as an agreeable and entertaining man. He was something of a favourite in society. His wit consisted in discovering droll connections between incongruous ideas; and when talking in that strain he sat well forward on his seat, with his left hand raised, as if exhibiting his funny demonstrations between the thumb and forefinger, while his round and clean-shaven face wore an expression of merry perplexity.

But there was no trace of merriment or perplexity in the way he looked at Mr Verloc. Lying far back in the deep armchair, with squarely spread elbows, and throwing one leg over a thick knee, he had with his smooth and rosy countenance the air of a preternaturally thriving baby that will not stand nonsense from anybody.

`You understand French, I suppose?' he said.

Mr Verloc stated huskily that he did. His whole vast bulk had a forward inclination. He stood on the carpet in the middle of the room, clutching his hat and stick in one hand; the other hung lifelessly by his side. He muttered unobtrusively somewhere deep down in his throat something about having done his military service in the French artillery. At once, with contemptuous perversity, Mr Vladimir changed the language, and began to speak idiomatic English without the slightest trace of a foreign accent.

`Ah! Yes. Of course. Let's see. How much did you get for obtaining the design of the improved breech- block of their new field-gun?'

`Five years' rigorous confinement in a fortress,' Mr Verloc answered, unexpectedly, but without any sign of feeling.

`You got off easily,' was Mr Vladimir's comment. `And, anyhow, it served you right for letting yourself get caught. What made you go in for that sort of thing - eh?'

Mr Verloc's husky conversational voice was heard speaking of youth, of a fatal infatuation for an unworthy...

`Aha! Cherchez la femme,' Mr Vladimir deigned to interrupt, unbending, but without affability; there was, on the contrary, a touch of grimness in his condescension. `How long have you been employed by the Embassy here?' he asked.

`Ever since the time of the late Baron Stott-Wartenheim,' Mr Verloc answered in subdued tones, and protruding his lips sadly, in sign of sorrow for the deceased diplomat. The First Secretary observed this play of physiognomy steadily.

`Ah! ever since... Well! What have you got to say for yourself?' he asked, sharply.