t result it was for him to insure. Apart from second cousins, to whom
he had never said a word and never proposed to address, apart from them,
apart too from his father and himself, there was only his sister, Sally
Balaguine, who, one night, had gone to bed in Petersburg and, on the
morrow, had awakened in Petrograd. Though, in addition to this much
surprised lady, before whose eyes Petrograd subsequently dissolved into
Retrograd and afterward into delirium, there was her son, a boy of
three. Mme. Balaguine's prince did not count, or rather had ceased to.
As lieutenant of the guards he had gone to the front where a portion of
him had been buried, the rest having been minutely dispersed.

To perpetuate the clan in its elder branch, there was therefore but this
young man, a circumstance which, on his return from Havana, his father
advanced.

They were then at luncheon. For the father there was biscuit and milk.
For the son there was an egg cooked in a potato. Yet, in the kitchen,
or, if not there, somewhere about, were three chefs. Moreover on the
walls were Beauvais. The ceiling was the spoil of a Venetian palace. The
luncheon however simple was not therefore disagreeable.

With an uplift of the chin, the elder man flicked a crumb and sat back.
The action was a signal. Three servants filed out.

Formerly his manner had been cited and imitated. To many a woman it had
been myrrh and cassia. It had been deadly nightshade as well. After a
fashion of long ago, he wore a cavalry moustache which, once black, now
was white. He was tall, bald, very thin. But that air of his, the air of
one accustomed to immediate obedience, yet which could be very urbane
and equally insolent, that air endured.

In sitting back he looked at his son for whom he had no affection. For
no human being had he ever had any affection, except for himself, and
latterly even that unique love had waned.

The chefs, originally retained on shifts of eight hours each, in order
that this man might breakfast or sup whenever he so desired, that he
might breakfast, as a gentleman may, at four in the afternoon, or sup at
seven in the morning, these chefs were useless. His wife, who had died,
not as one might suppose of a broken heart but of fatty degeneration,
had succumbed to their delicately toxic surprises with groans but also
with thanksgiving.

That is ancient history. At present her widower supped on powdered
charcoal and breakfasted on bismuth. The cook