Jump through the window." "Go, my friend," answered the Count, calmly.

"I will not run away." "You had much better come," insisted Dumnoff, apparently indifferent to the noise of the crowd as it tried to force open the closed door, and shaking off two or three men who had made their way out into the street with him.

He held the key in one hand, and his assailants had small chance of getting it away.
"You will not come ?" he repeated.

But the Count shook his head, within the room.
"Then I will not run away either," said Dumnoff, the good side of his dull nature showing itself at last.

With the utmost indifference to consequences he returned to the door, unlocked it, and strode through the midst of the people, who made way readily enough before him, after their late painful experience of his manner of making way for himself.
"I have changed my mind," he said, in German, quietly placing himself between his late keepers, who were alternately rubbing themselves and brushing the dust off each other's clothes after their tumble.
In the astonished silence which succeeded Dumnoff's return, the Count's voice was heard again.
"I am both anxious and ready to explain everything, if you will do me the civility to listen," he said.