Ivan made no mistake in these personal equations of his; but he managed one very bad one when, in his heart, he thought of fate, or destiny, or circumstance, as leaving all responsibility of decision to him, thus shirking its generally acknowledged business. Had this chosen son harbored no such audacity, perhaps the rearrangement of Ivan's life, necessary though it had now become, might have been gradually wrought. As it was, the fellow must be given a double lesson, and forced to learn it well:—by heart, in all probability. Nor must it fail to stretch his powers of apprehension to their fullest extent. Wherefore, in the early autumn, the giant wheel that is not turned by chance, began to revolve for Ivan, very slowly, without apparent aim in its pristine movements.

Summer was gone. The five great camps in the Empire had been broken a fortnight before; and officers and men alike began to let their backs relax a little, and were taking less notice of dust-flecks on their uniforms. In the suburbs, at TsarskoË-Selo, for instance, there were now many villas whose eyes had closed for the night of winter—their recently open windows and doors being dismally boarded over; while their aristocratic owners were indulging in a last informal holiday at some one of the foreign Spas, before the serious business of winter sleighing and court balls should recommence. This year there was, however, less flitting than usual; for men in high places had been made to understand the full significance of an imperial whisper that the ministers and their aides remain in close touch with Peterhof and the Hermitage. Europe was under a tension of hope—and fear. And the Bear and the Lion crouched face to face, every muscle rigid, eyes glued upon each other, ears strained to catch every faintest echo from the booming of northern guns in that far-off land where America lay, already torn and bleeding with the first lacerations of her terrible inward strife.

In the first week of September, Lieutenant Gregoriev, returning from a visit to his father in Moscow, rejoined Captain de Windt in their apartment in the little PerÉolouk.—Thus the court journal: whereby the young man should have perceived himself to have ascended at least one more round of the social ladder. If he did not realize this, however, Ivan was still in a very excellent frame of mind. His stay with his father had been pleasanter than he had hoped; for Prince Michael, who began to see his every ambition realized in the probable future of his son, had been more agreeable to him than ever before, and absolutely magnificent in his generosity. Ivan felt a little thrill of amazement every time he recalled the amount of money at his command. Moreover, here was a new season coming on; and one that promised him delight untold. For was it not to bring the dÉbut of his cousin Nathalie? She, light of his dreams, no longer to be shut away from his eyes, or voice, or even—speak of it reverently!—arms, perhaps—stood where he had stood a year before: on the threshold of the ballroom of youth. The world was to know her well; for her mother, always advocate of the dernier cri de la mode, had decided, months before, that she, like a dozen ladies of the highest Russian world, would adopt, for her daughter, the English fashion; and actually allow her, before her marriage, to face the living world of men and things. At the first court ball of the season she should be presented to her sovereigns; after which it would be understood that the charming child was in the matrimonial market, ready to be knocked down to the highest bidder.

Had her cousin Ivan, who scarcely regarded her presentation in this harsh and vulgar light, thrilled at the prospect of her first appearance there, how much more must it mean to the damsel herself, who, in all her girlish dreams of the freedom of womanhood, had never dared picture the possibility of such liberty before the event of marriage? During the coming season there were to be introduced half a dozen other young girls of her own station, who had even been in her own class at the Institute. And more than once this true daughter of the world had laughingly reviewed her possible rivals, either to herself, or to her interested maid. There were Mademoiselle Cherneskovsky, with her long, skinny neck; and Alexandra Nikitenko, whose red face and fat figure could not possibly be forgotten in the good-nature of her disposition, any more than the immense wealth of the only daughter of the ShÚlka-Mirskies could compensate for her thin, colorless hair, and pale, red-rimmed eyes with their invisible white lashes. Finally, there was Olga Tarentino, whose blonde stateliness might prove dangerous, so long as she could keep from a betrayal of her vixenish temper. But pretty Nathalie, remembering the furious recklessness of this, laughed as she lifted her golden-framed hand-glass, and accepted, complacently, the ready flattery of smooth-tongued Antoinette.

Nor, seeing this young girl as she stood, surrounded by her mother, two maids, and half a dozen adoring serfs, on the evening of November 12th, in the year 1862, could any one have blamed her, very strongly, for her gay vanity. Lovelier vision than this surely never graced the somewhat bare corridors of the labyrinthine Hermitage! For this was the night of her dÉbut, when Nathalie was to make her first courtesies to royalty.

She was dressed in the prescribed court costume—which was to prove so trying to the objects of her naughty ridicule. Upon her, the high kakoshnik, with its jewelled rim, and the floating veil that softened so beautifully the great weight of her braids, proved startlingly beautiful. And, with a neck like hers, what more desirable than the daring dÉcolletage of her white tulle gown, from the billowing skirts of which her tiny waist sprang like the slender stem of a huge, white rose. About her throat was clasped a double row of pearls—her father's gift to her for the great occasion. And, in her arms,—last, daring touch of her Countess-mother, who, in the matter of dress, was a consummate artist,—Nathalie carried a great cluster of vivid crimson camellias, that gave a perfect finish to a costume now relieved from any suspicion of monotony, or too conventional simplicity. The red of the waxen camellia, vividly transparent as it was, was scarce redder than the unroughed cheeks and lips of their bearer. Nor was the brilliant sparkling of the diamonds in the kakoshnik inadequately reproduced in the light of those changing eyes, which, to-night, glowed large and dark with steady, living fire.

Caroline, Countess Dravikine, gazing critically at her daughter's finished figure, felt her heart glow within her. Who could reproach her for exploiting such beauty before marriage? For at sight of Nathalie to-night, an Emperor himself could scarce have reproached his son for desiring the hand of so exquisite a creature. And, with her own great skill as a firm basis for the girl's charming ingenuousness, reflected her mother, what alliance would prove impossible to her now? For, even in her mother-love, this odd woman was filled with the selfishness of a very empty vanity. And it seemed now as if, with the death of her unhappy sister, there had also died in Madame Dravikine the last vestige of unworldliness.

The Hermitage that night proved a fitting field for her generalship. The event so long dreaded by her as the seeming end of her own youth, was suddenly turned into a double triumph. For, as Nathalie passed through the long salons, she was followed by such a trail of whispers, envious, malicious, amazed, from the women, universally applausive from the men, that the Countess suddenly realized that she held in her hands a new instrument of power; one greater than she had ever wielded before. Moreover, before an hour was gone, she knew well that she had been vindicated of any suggestion of mistake in having adopted the English rather than the French form in introducing her daughter. For his Majesty exclaimed, delightedly, as he personally lifted the dÉbutante from her third low and graceful courtesy; and the Empress, most charming, most gentle, most refined of women, kissed the young girl on the cheek with a compliment that made Princess ShÚlka-Mirski scowl with displeasure—her own daughter having received no more than the conventional acknowledgment. Later, as Nathalie, her cheeks burning, her big eyes cast down, backed slowly from the room, still prostrating herself at intervals, every woman present felt that little, insensible murmur of applause that came from every member of the royal circle—the grand-dukes indeed attempting no concealment of their admiration.

The great formality over, Mademoiselle Nathalie was bestowed upon her own, voluntary subjects: a throng of brilliantly uniformed men, among whom already—oh remarkable girlhood!—Nathalie's eyes were eagerly searching, for a certain one. He was there; and presently, catching that look, he came to her: the handsome, black-eyed cousin, whose heart was throbbing for and with her. And her triumphant mother would have been dismayed indeed had she known that all that evening, throughout her unprecedented success, Nathalie had moved and spoken and blushed and been still for one alone, whose eyes, from the moment of her entry into the royal presence, she had felt upon her!

How this feeling had come, whence it sprang, whereon been nourished, grown, who could say? Certainly not the maiden herself. Indeed, until this night, she had not given Ivan his rightful place with her. But henceforth she was to hold his image in her heart, and, sleeping and waking, it was to be with her, her delight, her anguish, her wonderment.

Already she had given all that was in her to give. She was totally inexperienced. But he had at last, and recently, tasted the forbidden apple. And already there had risen in him such a host of fierce, conflicting passions as left him half frightened at the forbidden possibilities now thronging his heart. To-night, as he looked into the eyes of this pure and exquisite girl, there rushed upon him all suddenly, the real meaning of man-love; the fulness thereof; the fury of perfected passion: the union of love and of desire.

Poor Ivan! The evening held things other than delight for him. As he sat beside his cousin, talked to her, held her in his arms during one of the wild, Russian mazurkas, he felt his body tremble with the terrible force within him. And once the little form he held twisted, suddenly, in his embrace. Nathalie cried out, and looked up at him; and he realized that his strong clasp had hurt her. His look answered hers. Then the child lowered her eyes, while a furious color dyed her cheeks and neck; and Ivan could have shouted aloud at what he saw and knew. Confidently he demanded of her more dances, and more and more. And she granted them mechanically, neither thinking nor caring for appearances, nor for any other person in those rooms. She was like one in a dream. Vladimir de Windt, marvelling at the recklessness of the affair, came once to the twain, thinking to expostulate with Ivan. But what he saw in the two faces turned blankly upon him, filled him with such sudden perception that he stumbled through an excuse, and went off to seek some spot where he could think; saying to himself, as he went:

"Good God! Who would have believed he could love like that!—and she also!"

But there were others in those rooms who had not his insight. And it came finally to the remembrance of Madame Dravikine, in the midst of a most amusing tÊte-À-tÊte, that she was no longer a free agent at balls: that she was chaperoning a daughter who appeared to be alarmingly unconventional. Leaning upon the arm of her titled companion, Madame Dravikine went forth to fulfil the first scheme of Ivan's relentless destiny.

Lieutenant Gregoriev and his cousin had finally retreated to a small and empty antechamber, where the strains of the distant band came in a soft echo to their ears. Ivan was leaning forward, in front of the girl, whose eyes were lowered. A moment before his right hand had closed, gently, over her own unresisting one; and the words he was speaking would have been inaudible to any one two yards away. Nathalie was with him in another world. At her feet, forgotten, lay the camellias, looking like a splash of blood upon the slippery floor. Ivan's head was swimming as he talked. But, in the midst of a sentence, he saw his companion give a great start. Then she snatched her hand from his, pushed him aside, and rose, unsteadily, her face deathly white. Ivan, noting the flowers, stooped for them, and, ere he returned them to her, detached one, and thrust it into the pocket of his uniform. Then he lifted his look to meet the blazing eyes of his aunt, and the cynical smile of a tall, gold-laced man, whose breast was covered with orders, and whose mustache and imperial were known to and hated by all Petersburg; for Prince FÉodoreff was a person whose penchant for feminine youth and beauty had carried him into many walks of life.

The present little scene was interesting, but brief. Ivan never knew how it was that Nathalie was presently disappearing through a doorway on the arm of this man; her much-abused bouquet, held by one ribbon in her listless right hand, trailing eloquently upon the ground; while he, furious, but still dizzy from unwonted emotion, stood facing his aunt. When her cold look had become intolerable to him, she added to it her voice; saying, in a tone he had never heard from her:

"It is a pity I am forced to understand that my daughter is not to be trusted with her cousin, even for one hour,—in a royal palace!"

With this she would have turned away. But something in Ivan's eyes stopped her, despite her justified anger.

"Mademoiselle Nathalie Alexeiovna is to be trusted with any one, anywhere, for any length of time. But with no one could she ever be safer than with me, madame!" he said, passionately.

"Ah! And your method of taking care of her, is to manage so that she shall be criticised, commented on, laughed at by the entire court during the first hour of the first evening of her appearance in the world!—Were you not a baby, Ivan, I should think you either mad or dishonorable!—As it is, I am glad to have discovered what you are so soon; though it will take months to regain for my unfortunate daughter the position she has lost through your preposterous behavior. I shall take good care, however, that she never again endangers her reputation by receiving any sort of attention from you, in any place, at home or abroad.—You will do well not to offer it, Ivan Mikhailovitch; for I cannot have my daughter's name linked with that of a Gregoriev!" With which brutal thrust this great lady turned coolly away, leaving Ivan, stuttering with rage, behind her.

Thus, upon the first possible occasion, did Ivan ruin his winter. Nor can it be said that he had not brought his punishment upon his own head, by conduct so recklessly inconsiderate, that, considering the custom of his country, it could scarcely be called that of a gentleman. Madame Dravikine had been justified in the first part of her reproof; though nothing, probably, could have excused the bitter insult of her final taunt. For that, indeed, holding, as it did, a reproof of her dead sister, her conscience pricked her more than once. But it had no effect on the chaperonage now imposed by her upon her hapless daughter. Never, perhaps, was heavier price paid by two offenders for the folly of a single hour.

After the night of November 12th, any man in Petersburg could gain audience of Mademoiselle Dravikine more easily than the one man whom Mademoiselle Dravikine cared to see. Nathalie, indeed, made herself miserable enough over the situation to have warmed Ivan's heart, could he have known the fact. Her longed-for world—that wonder-land of which she had dreamed so long, for which she had been so assiduously prepared, was not wonderful to her now. To her eyes, the gilding over the iron bars was very thin: the perfumed padding on the stone walls but a poor disguise of their chill impenetrability. Nor could she find in her guide and mentor—that mother, whom she so little knew,—either comfort or refuge in her unhappiness. Madame Dravikine, indeed, was disgusted and disappointed. The tale of Ivan's mad devotion and of her daughter's imprudence, had spread through the city, losing nothing in the telling. And Nathalie's open stubbornness and rebellion confirmed it only too clearly. To her mother's mind, Nathalie was behaving in an imbecile fashion. Suppose she had acted in such a way, when, as Mademoiselle Blashkov of Moscow, she had been besieged by a handsome, impecunious young officer; and, instead of throwing him over for the wealthy young Count Dravikine, had capped her sister's black marriage by one wildly improvident? Besides, she was not without serious plans with regard to her daughter, even in these first weeks of her first season. But no plan seemed possible of fulfilment when, night after night, Nathalie would make a dutiful, dejected appearance in some fashionable salon, and would sit, drooping and visibly wretched, wherever she was put, unless, by some unlucky chance, she caught a glimpse of the white and gold of Ivan's uniform. Then her sudden wild vivacity would fill her mother with helpless rage; and she would wait and watch, while a roomful smiled, and the rows of diamond-laden dowagers shook their heads and lifted their eyebrows solemnly towards the oblivious girl, whom no sarcastic comment, no openly insulting interpretation of her open preference, could, apparently, make her understand the importance of a union of family and fortune in the bridegroom of Mademoiselle Dravikine. Moreover, it would sound really incredible were one to make a positive statement of the number of nights throughout which this silly child lay sobbing, in the kindly darkness of her bedchamber, till the approach of late-rising dawn brought a brief forgetfulness of her unquestionably ridiculous little trial.

Perhaps, after all, it is rather pitiful that this calf-love, confidently derided by omniscient, sensible middle-age, should be so tender and so beautiful a thing. Once it is crushed out of us, we are not likely ever again to be burdened with a feeling at all similar to it. Nor is it often tough-fibred enough to weather the stress of the first years of married life; and come through the equinoctials of the inevitable adjustment unshattered and unwrecked. And yet—how much would not most women give to feel once more the fine, ecstatic shiver of that first, foolish kiss? And the dreams of this period—how fair, how delicate, how fragile—how utterly impractical they are! What beauties are not conjured up by the imagination, during those delicious, sleepless nights; only to be dissipated into chilling mist by the stern realities of the relentless morning?

There is a very old, very trite philosophy that can be made to replace such a state of mind. Most young men of twenty-five are gloating over it: feeling themselves sad cynics, suffering from a tragic past. Unbearable to others this stage may be. But it is a pleasant haven to the individual anchored there, safe from the recent storms of disillusionment. By January, poor Vladimir de Windt began to long for the first signs of this state in his companion. Ivan was, certainly, in a preposterous mood; and had not even grace enough to appreciate the long-suffering patience of his friend, who listened, with unfailing courtesy, to his eternal ravings over the nameless but perfectly well-known object of his undying adoration. There did, however, finally come a day when Vladimir's despairing wishes met with a kind of fulfilment.

About noon on January 16th, Ivan, returning from a morning at the riding-school, passed the church of St. Simeon. Noting the effect of the candle-flames on the velvet darkness of that part of the interior visible through the open portals, and remembering that it was an especial saint's day, he entered, thinking to kneel for a moment behind the throng of men and women by whom the church was nearly filled. Suddenly, before he had chosen his place, he was aware of an intense emotion. Ere he had time to analyze it, there came a light touch on his arm, and he turned to face his cousin, Nathalie, wrapped in the soft sables that matched the momentary shade of her eyes. Behind her a young serf, Anitchka, a foolish and romantic creature, bobbed and grinned with pleased excitement.

Instantly Ivan saw his opportunity. A moment later Nathalie's attendant, with a piece of gold in her hand, was forcing her way to a place near the altar, whence prayers for her benefactor would presently rise. Meantime Ivan had turned, eagerly, tremulously, to the young girl.

"Natusha!—The saints have heard me at last!—Oh Natusha,—Natusha!" It seemed as if that endearing diminutive could not leave his lips, so did he linger over it, while he pressed her small, gloved hands passionately between his bare ones.

"Oh Ivan—I am glad!—But I am afraid, too! I must tell you—everything. And then we will say good-bye!"

"No!" She started at the fierceness of that monosyllable. "Not 'good-bye.'—Not yet!—Not yet!"

"Yes, Ivan. I am too unhappy. I must—I have got to stop thinking about you.—It is too hard, too miserable, the other way.—And I know they will never let you see me again."

Ivan's reply was a tightening of his clasp on her hands. Then he bent his head, while his brows were knitted, anxiously. It seemed as if he could not speak. And she had opened her lips to comfort him a little when he burst forth, huskily:

"Nathalie, I love you better than life! Will you marry me?"

"Oh!—Ivan!" The child trembled. She would have drawn away, but that he held her tightly and strove to look into her face. Then, suddenly, she grew braver, and let her eyes meet his. In the rose-red of her fair face he read, ecstatically, his answer. But he was to have yet more. Unknowing that he had read her thought, she found her voice and whispered: "Yes!"

And then, in a second, he had kissed her, upon the mouth, there in the dusk of the little, empty chapel. Whereafter, indeed, she would have torn herself from him, had he not drawn her arm through his, and started forward, saying, in her ear:

"Come, my dear! We are betrothed. You belong to me, henceforth. And we are in a church. Let us go and see if they will marry us, here, now.—I believe God gave you to me just now for this very thing. And—"

But Ivan had at last got beyond her courage. It was a daring thing he had proposed; and he had not paused to reflect that, considering the laws of their stern faith, so hasty an affair would be impossible. Perhaps, then, Ivan had some right to be bitterly disappointed at her vehement protests. How could he understand that, even with her, the signs and formalities, the insignia and paraphernalia of a fashionable marriage, even more than marriage itself, form, in the mind of a young girl, the grand aim, centre, end, even, of all life. And he was asking her to forget all these!—Preposterous—love him though she did! No. They were engaged. That she allowed. And was not that enough for one day?—Ivan could not gainsay her.—Well, then, let him come at once to her father. And perhaps on the morrow—the wonderful morrow—the court journal would make formal announcement of their betrothal, and she would be that most interesting (?) of feminine creatures, a girl engaged!

Thus she talked: thus dreamed. And Ivan, in a little paradise of his own, was drawn, in spite of himself, into her spirit of enthusiasm. He promised to go, that very evening, to his uncle. And so, at length, he left her, half a block from the Dravikine house, and went his way towards his apartment, already beginning on the fourth year of his married life.

It was half-past eight o'clock that evening when Lieutenant Gregoriev, shivering with something more than cold, stood at the door of the Dravikine house. When it opened, he was informed at once that Monsieur le Comte was at home; and the impenetrable butler, bursting with interest, showed him solemnly to the library, on the threshold of which stood Ivan's shadowy fate, black-robed. For five minutes the Lieutenant waited, his heart in his mouth, his dry tongue vainly trying to repeat that careful little speech, the original of which he had unfortunately left on the bureau of his room in his own apartment.

In the small salon of that apartment, meantime, sat Vladimir de Windt, waiting, uneasily, and making futile attempts to read. For Ivan's sake he was neglecting all his engagements for the evening and the night, that he might be the first to congratulate his chum on his engagement. The minutes passed. More than an hour, now, since Ivan had bidden him a shaky good-night! And the longer the wait, the more hopeful things must naturally look. An accepted man sits late with his fiancÉe, discussing the most important question in the world, while the serfs group themselves intelligently round the key-hole. And yet, as the clock ticked off second after second, the faithful Vladimir grew unaccountably fretful and restless. Time was, indeed, when the circumstances of this wait had been more painful than now. For, in the early half of the winter, the ingenuous Nathalie had made some little havoc with the usually well-ordered mind and heart of Monsieur de Windt. But from the first Ivan had confided in his friend. And that friend was an honorable man. As the days of poor Ivan's exile passed, and his misery had grown, de Windt found his sympathy gradually overcoming his sentiment. Moreover, Nathalie's drooping young face, familiar to him through many balls and receptions, showed the mind of the young girl too plainly for mistake. In so far as in her lay, she returned her cousin's love. By December, Captain de Windt had set himself seriously to subdue his little penchant; and such was his success that, as he sat waiting here to-night, his heart was sincerely with Ivan. Yet it was not so unremarkable that when, at a little before eleven, he watched a sleigh pull up at the door below and saw Ivan alight from it, Monsieur de Windt should be glad of the three flights of stairs that would assure perfect steadiness in the voice that must cry out the heartiest of congratulations.

Even to de Windt, however, Ivan was a long time ascending those stairs. Was this the manner of a man triumphant? Was the step, now audible—that heavy, dragging step,—the pace of a happy man? De Windt's heart beat slower. His face grew grave. And then,—the door opened; and Ivan came into the room.

He walked very slowly to a sofa in the corner, and removed his outer wrappings, piece by piece, flinging them down on floor or furniture. Then he turned and came back to the hot porcelain stove by which de Windt had been sitting, dropped into a chair, drooped his head for a moment to his breast, but finally lifted his face and looked squarely at his friend. Good Heaven!—Could calf-love do that to a boyish face?—Was it really Ivan, this gray-hued, inexpressibly weary man, with the dull, expressionless eyes, and the mouth drawn into so ugly a line?—Calf-love?—Impossible!

The oppressive silence grew heavier and more heavy. Ivan continued to stare; but it was into vacancy now. He was greatly startled when he felt a hand touch his shoulder: a hand whose gentleness bespoke a sympathy that was very deep. De Windt had certainly not foreseen the effect of his involuntary act. At the gesture, Ivan started, as if he had been shot. Then he drew himself away, violently, and sprang to his feet, turning on his friend:

"Don't!—My God! Are you going to show me your pity?—Me?—A Gregoriev?—Humph!" He broke into an abominable little laugh. "They didn't give me much, Vladimir Vassilyitch! I heard from them all—Monsieur le Comte first; then my remarkable aunt; finally—finally from Mademoiselle Dravikine herself. Yes. At the end she came:—not alone! They led her in, you understand. She didn't look especially pretty. Her eyes were ridiculously red. Her voice was very husky; but she had got her part well, and she spoke it to me. Her expression might have been better; but she'll improve with practice.—There may be other fools in the world, you know, who haven't realized what a crime it is not to have ten irreproachably noble grandfathers.

"She—Mademoiselle Dravikine—asked my pardon for her shocking behavior of the morning. She had made a great mistake, she said. Upon due consideration, she perceived how impossible it would be to avail herself of my offer; because, to mention one of many reasons, of our near relationship. Nevertheless, she thanked me for my generosity in countenancing her most unwise action; trusted that the reversal of her reply would cause me no inconvenience; inconvenience, Vladimir, do you hear!—and so wished me good-night!—That was my final answer!—Afterwards, I had a few more words with the others; but I've forgotten what they were.—She, who let me kiss her, this morning, twice,—she spoke like that, to me!"

"Oh but Ivan,—my dear fellow, they evidently discovered your meeting this morning, and made her do this—little fool!"

"Oh, they found out about it, certainly.—My aunt saw her come in alone—without the serf. And it was she, of course—my aunt is a very strong person, Vladimir—who arranged my charming reception. Dravikine himself was quite civil to me. I could have stood his refusal of my offer.—And he looked uncomfortable, too, afterwards, when—his wife—came down and began to talk. It took her nearly an hour, I believe, to explain the immensity of my presumption.—I'm so beneath her, you know, her father being only my grandfather.—And, last of all, she had the pleasure of showing me what she could do with my—with her daughter."

"But—but—tell me, have they forbidden you the house?"

"She didn't say so."

"Oh well, then—it'll be easy! You must carry the girl off!"

Ivan gave a violent start; and, for one instant, the cruel mask dropped from his face, leaving an expression wonderfully different. Then all the gray bitterness closed in again. "That would be quite impossible.—Why man, consider! She herself refused me!"

"Nothing of the sort! This morning she was herself. To-night, she was repeating to you her mother's thoughts. They coerced her.—Be a man, my boy; and I'll help you! You two love each other; and you've got to marry. Do you think you owe her nothing?"

"Vladimir—Vladimir—you want to be kind to me. But you don't understand. You didn't hear—how that woman—insulted my race; my blood; yes—even her own sister, my mother!—You can't ask me to overlook that—even—for—Nathalie!"

And Ivan's deep groan touched the heart of the man that heard it.

Nevertheless, de Windt had been struck by the sudden thought he had as suddenly expressed. Marriage with her daughter, would certainly be as sure a thrust as could be given to the proud woman who had so causelessly hurt her nephew. After a time the friend pressed this view upon his companion, till Ivan, in spite of himself, joined in the working out of a strange idea: an idea of the seventeenth, rather than the nineteenth, century; but possible, feasible, for all that. So, in the end, young Gregoriev sought his bed that night not in black depression, but with his brain once more on fire with hope:—hope of an incredibly swift fulfilment of his lately despaired-of heart's desire.

This sudden frame of mind lasted for three days. And during that length of time Ivan went cheerfully about his daily tasks, meantime, in company with de Windt, working out the details of their secret plan. It was in pursuit of one of these that, on the afternoon of the fourth day, Ivan stood once again on the door-step of the Dravikine house.

Even in his nervousness Ivan noticed, as he waited, the unusual fact that the shades of the drawing-room were all pulled down. And it seemed to him, too, that there was about the house an air of unwonted desolation, which, as the minutes passed, certainly became intensified in his mind. Once more he sounded the huge knocker; and yet again: this time so vigorously that the door shook. His sense of calamity had grown till it was a presentiment. Yet his heart rose as, after a long five minutes, there came the sounds of fumbling key and grating lock; and then the door swung open before him, and he stood facing—not the trimly liveried butler, but the gaunt and stooping figure of Ekaterina, the old serf, garbed in a soiled working-dress.

"Madame Dravikine—does she receive to-day?"

"Saints behold us, Lieutenant, she may, for all I know! She and my little Natusha—who cried without ceasing for three days and three nights—went away this morning, with all their luggage, to the foreign land by the sea: to Germany, where it's warm, and where they will stay, my lady said, till summer comes again, and they can all go to TsarskoË.—Saints!—You are sick too, young sir!"

But Ivan, refusing her suggestion of a glass of wine, made a few more inquiries, found that the old woman had no idea of her mistress's real destination (to the Russian poor all the world west of Russia is "Germany"); and at last turned blindly away and began to walk in the direction of the nearest "tea-house," where he could think, unmolested.

His aunt had, at least, paid him a compliment in this flight. Evidently she was afraid of him—of his poor power!—And little Natusha had cried for three days and three nights! At thought of this, all the love and all the chivalry in him rose.—That she should be abused because of an act of his!—He ground his heels into the rough, wooden floor of the little traktir, and began to think more rapidly.—Yes, they should have cause to fear him! Nathalie must be his, since she cared for him as he for her. It was all very simple. He could find out, without great difficulty, where they had gone. Then, at once, he would follow them, and—people had eloped before now!—His father, he knew, would, not be displeased with the marriage; for he knew Dravikine to be his superior in rank. At least, there should be money enough, then, always, for his wife.

"Wife!" The word made his pulses throb. There remained only to discover his destination, and to get leave of absence from his Colonel. The latter was a mere form, given daily to officers at this season. He might as well obtain it at once.—So, paying his small score, he rose, leaving his drink untouched, and started off in the direction of Colonel Brodsky's dwelling.

It was a strange thing that Ivan, in his confidence of getting away immediately, forgot that old, unpaid grudge of his superior officer. Unhappily for him, when he made his request, eagerness was written in every line of his face. Brodsky listened and looked; paused, smiled maliciously, and then, with June in his memory, refused the leave as curtly as possible. Ivan started with amazement. But it was in vain that he argued, pleaded, raged, finally—imprudence of imprudence! even hinted at possible recompense. Brodsky, delighting in the pain he knew himself to be inflicting, became more and more inexorable, more and more insulting, till Ivan, angered beyond control, hurled out one furious epithet, and left the little room—heart-broken.

The ensuing weeks were ones that Vladimir de Windt, certainly, never forgot. For forty-nine endless days, until April had once more broken Russia's icy chains, no word came from the Dravikines; who were employing their time in a highly interesting fashion at Nice and Monaco with a party of friends; while Ivan dragged himself about Petersburg, madly seeking some distraction, finding it never. Daily his companions marvelled anew at the duration of what was, to them, the pettiest of "affairs." But Ivan's nature was ridiculously intense; and calf-love had become, in his eyes, the most serious thing in life. At last, when he had borne all that it seemed to him he could endure, fate offered him the relief of a sharp stab in the spot where the monotony of a continuous, dull ache had become intolerable.

On the morning of April 7th the court journal—and several other papers—contained the announcement that "a marriage had been arranged and would immediately take place between Mademoiselle Nathalie Dravikine, daughter of,—etc., and S. A. Alexander Gregory Boris, Prince FÉodoreff, sometime Gentleman of the Bedchamber to his Imperial Majesty Nicholas I." Further down the column came another statement that, owing to the delicate health of the bride-elect, the wedding would be a quiet one, celebrated at Nice within the month; whereafter, during the summer, the Prince and Princess FÉodoreff would return to Russia by easy stages, probably spending August at TsarskoË-Selo with the parents of the bride, where the Prince would have time to settle into the new relationship between himself and a lady who had hitherto occupied towards him a position very different from that of mother-in-law. The beginning of the winter season would, however, see the FÉodoreff residence in the Fourchstadskaia open for the occupation of the young Princess.

Ivan himself discovered these somewhat startling items of intelligence. Later he pursued all the feminine details that appeared concerning the bride's beauty, the magnificence of her trousseau, the wealth and station of the groom, and even a hint or two of the romantic affair of the recent dÉbutante with a cousin, during the past winter. For one week Ivan endured his pain in silence. Then, upon a certain Saturday, he went to Brodsky again, asking him for leave and a double passport. This time the Colonel, studying his Lieutenant's face, saw fit to grant both the leave and the second request. Ten minutes after he had entered the official room, Ivan left it again, bearing with him the death-warrant of his military career.

Returning to his apartment, the young man held a brief interview with de Windt, who said little, but studied the boy's face anxiously; and, though he attempted neither advice nor remonstrance, finally made a tentative suggestion about accompanying his friend. He was not astonished at the rejection of the proposition. But Ivan's ensuing remark afterwards troubled him not a little.

"Don't worry, Vladimir Vassilyitch. I'm not going alone. There will be some one who will take excellent care of me."

By an effort, de Windt refrained from questions. But as he watched his comrade depart, an hour later, his light luggage strapped on the droschky behind him, Vladimir's heart was heavy with foreboding. Could he have seen Ivan's first destination he might, at last, have attempted some active remonstrance; though it is doubtful if he could have made any impression on Ivan's present mood. Lieutenant Gregoriev drove straight to a house on Vassily Island: held there a brief but interesting interview with a certain young woman; and, three hours later, any one who cared to look might have seen Ivan Gregoriev and Irina Petrovna, with luggage and passports which attempted no deception, leaving Petersburg together on the evening train for Baden-Baden!

Just what Ivan's intention had been when, in his hour of madness, he committed this irreparable and terrible mistake, no one, least of all himself, could have said. Despair had driven him, for the moment, out of his senses. He cared nothing whatever for himself or his reputation, little for that of the woman he would have dragged down with him. In his mind he had some dreary hope that Nathalie, the weak and faithless, would learn of his wretched action and be hurt by it—a little as he had been hurt by her.

Before the reckless twain had arrived at their all too public destination, however, Ivan was in a fever of misery and shame. Well enough to laugh and say that the thing he proposed to do was so common as scarce to cause notice in the gay watering-place, always a rendezvous for the high half-world. But Ivan was, even now, by no means of this kind: the military members of the Yacht club, to whom such escapades were afterwards proudly exploited among their friends. All night long, as he sat upright in his place in the reserved carriage, sleepless, watching the young woman who was reclining opposite him trustfully unconscious, Ivan was aware of his mother's reproachful presence: and heard again the voice that had rung so dreadfully in his boyish ears: "Remember, Ivan, what I have suffered, through a man! Will you remember?—Will you break the Gregoriev tradition towards women?"

Once again Sophia, gentle woman, did her work. Irina Petrovna opened her eyes, next day, upon a different man.

Whether the girl were astonished, or pleased, or disappointed, by the strangeness of her situation during the fortnight in Baden, Ivan could not tell. He was perfectly well aware that it would be of no use to explain their true position to any one he knew. Mockery at his faith in their credulity at so preposterous a statement, would have been his only reward. But it was none the less true that, so long as Irina remained with him, she was treated with the punctilious courtesy that he should have used towards her had she been what they pretended her to be: his sister. He had taken three rooms—two bedrooms and a little salon—at the hotel. And the very waiters winked, solemnly, outside the salon door, as they served early coffee and, later, an elaborate dÉjeuner, to the two within. But Ivan could meet any eye calmly. And if Irina marvelled, she said nothing. Only, from this time forth, Ivan occupied, in her secret soul, a niche of his own, far above that of any other man. In later years, many candles burned before her shrine; and it served to keep within her heart one spot inviolate. The thoughts, the prayers, expended here without sense of conscious virtue, perhaps served her unexpectedly in the end, when before her, hopeless one, a golden gate swung slowly open, and she entered that land where the wretched deeds of her later life could blacken her thoughts no more.—At the time, certainly, she might have been impatient at the formality of her companion's manner, his unfailing deference to her faintest wish. And yet she was conscious that the days spent in this gay resort were happy: happier than any she had ever known. And even Ivan, in the great anxiety of his soul, found that a conscience unexpectedly clear can bring a species of content less fleeting than any causeless light-heartedness. He was giving little thought to others' thought of him. But Petersburg was dull just now; and his behavior had been a godsend to the salons.—Good Heavens—how they were using his name—and hers!

On the morning of April 30th, Petersburg was still a sea of mud: the atmosphere still thick with rain. Spring was opening slowly. But the ice had gone out of the Neva. Boats plied along the canals. And all the world was packing away its furs. The day was intensely dreary. But the heart of Vladimir de Windt, who was lounging idly about his desolate apartment, was drearier still. How he missed that foolish Ivan, still lost in the great unknown! How he railed at him, in secret, the while he bravely defended him, single-handed, against the world; till the day when he learned Ivan's prospect of utter calamity and took the knowledge home with him to bear in solitude. It was a week, now, since the day of his own interview with Brodsky. By this time the whole city knew all!—Gregoriev's heart-history had been dragged gayly through the mud of Petersburg society; and at last the curious world might write finis upon a completed story—in which the lady was now safely married to another; the man disgraced and degraded.—But the cause of this disgrace, and its injustice, only de Windt knew or cared to know.

Even he could not guess, however, how Brodsky had discovered the identity of Ivan's companion. But de Windt had borne the brunt of the Colonel's rage when he learned it; and de Windt had endeavored to obtain some sort of softening of the sentence pronounced upon the unhappy boy.—It was vain. And even Vladimir, as he lay once more going over the rapid events of the past weeks, never dreamed, in his heart, that Ivan was not guilty in a certain way. Men must judge one another by their own standards. De Windt had never thought Ivan effeminate—a milk-sop; but, had he been made to believe the truth, it is probable that one or the other of these epithets would then have expressed his opinion of his friend.

The first charge made by Brodsky against his Lieutenant was that of overstaying his leave—already for the length of seven days, and still no prospect of return. The second charge, a far more serious one, was that of conduct unbecoming an officer of the guard: conduct which, though it might be laid to the door of almost any unmarried officer in the service, nobody had ever before dreamed of forcing home for judgment. But at last, it seemed, there was a man willing and ready, for the sake of an old spite, to risk shattering his own glass house to splinters for the sake of a revenge. Brodsky was determined, immediately upon Ivan's return, to summon him to a court-martial; and, since he was not a man to keep silence with regard to his plans, the tale, with its piquant references to Brodsky's private malice, was in everybody's mouth, and was found spicy enough to sting the palate of the most jaded scandal-monger in the army—in comparison with which that of a woman of fifty years' residence in India, is not to be compared. But by the end of April even this affair had been served up often enough to have grown slightly stale; and Petersburg was now on the qui vive for a dÉnouement.

It came, that dÉnouement—well-timed: just when the clubs were full to the brim, the barracks crowded, the city overflowing with ennuyÉe men and women who were preparing for their summer flight. But the first scene of the last act was not watched by the outer world.

It was eleven o'clock on the morning of the 30th. De Windt, grown desperate under the weight of his thoughts, flung his yellow novel into the empty stove, and had just lounged back to the sofa when—the door opened, quietly, and Ivan came in: Ivan, rather pale, but very dignified: his head held high.

Vladimir turned on him, opened his lips, closed them again and gazed, silently, at his comrade. Ivan returned the look for a few seconds,—stared—read—possibly understood. At all events his face suddenly quivered, and then—he began to laugh! He passed from one paroxysm to another, till de Windt, in a blind rage, took him by the shoulders and shook him, violently, to silence. Then, under a swift reaction, he stood before the prodigal drooping like a school-boy under his master's frown. But Ivan felt, apparently, no resentment. Presently he went to the side-table, poured himself out three fingers of cognac, drank it, and then, as he began to remove his dripping outer garments, asked, rather briskly than otherwise:

"Well, Vladimir—out with it! What are they going to do about me?"

And Vladimir, half-irritated, but driven, in any case, to speech, told, briefly and baldly, all he had to tell. In ten minutes, Ivan stood looking down upon the hopeless, crumbling ruin of his life.

In these sudden crises, there are few men philosophic enough, or wise enough, to look, broadly, back, inward, and ahead, in a calm analysis of cause, effect and reason. At this time, Ivan certainly knew—had known, for months if not for years, that he was leading a life for which nature had not fitted him: neglecting a career bestowed upon him by a higher hand than often interferes in the destinies of man. There had been many times when, his whole soul yearning over the work to which he could devote so little of his best self, he had cried aloud to Heaven to change his lot—to banish these half-gods that kept his true lord at bay. And now these inarticulate prayers were fully answered:—and Ivan's soul was writhing in rebellion at the injustice of that which had been put upon him: the malicious revenge of a scoundrelly officer who, for private reasons, had seen fit to punish him for an offence which was daily winked at by the entire army! Indeed, Brodsky's action, which was certainly justified by the letter but never by the spirit of the military code, had caused the military world a quiver of apprehension. They looked on, aghast, at proceedings which they were powerless to stop. But it is safe to say that there was not a man in the court-martial who did not blush as he admitted the justice of the sentence finally passed upon the luckless prisoner. The proceedings lasted, altogether, a fortnight; during which time all of Russia and a great part of Europe rang with the scandal.—Ivan did not even attempt a defence; though Irina, coming to him on the first evening, went down on her knees in her plea to be allowed to save him. Even Ivan's lawyer foresaw the reception of her unsupported statement as against the testimony of the hotel clerks, boys and waiters brought from Baden by Brodsky himself. In the end, Mademoiselle Petrovna was not permitted to appear at all in court. Ivan's money kept her safely out of Russia, after the second day of the trial. And, while the girl mourned for him, she knew well that her own fortune in the half-world was made.—Such advertising as this!—Who could compete with her? Had not the papers in Europe published, twenty times, the picture of the beautiful heroine of this unsavory romance?

In the mean time, in Moscow, the chief of the Third Section was aging a year a day as he raved, helpless and mad with fury, at the folly of his son and the treacherous villany of Brodsky. Privately, Russian officialdom was shaken to its depths. But daily the masks were adjusted, and the farce of virtue, within and without that court, went on; while the people, even to the peasants, laughed at the mockery of it all. Some sort of compensation, later on, Michael Gregoriev did obtain. In the autumn of that year FÓma Vassilyitch Brodsky went to Siberia, as the result of an examination of certain peculations, the charge of which, together with overwhelming proof, was brought by Prince Gregoriev of Moscow.

But that was a sorry triumph: the victor a broken man. For Michael Gregoriev had lost his son; and, with him, all those great ambitions for which he had toiled and cheated and blackmailed throughout a lifetime.

Finally, on the morning of May 17th, Ivan Gregoriev, degraded from his rank, driven in disgrace from the army, sat alone in his bedroom conning over the words of the telegram clutched in his listless hand: words whereby he understood that he was no longer the son of his father, but sat, a penniless outcast, alone in a pitiless, jeering world.