oat of mail; yet that night the sword of
disaster glanced off it as by a miracle only.

Was this man indeed a father who could find place for his boy at such a
table, beside the woman who awaited him? who could command the boy in
one breath to drain his glass, and Piotr in the next to refill it?

Within twenty minutes Ivan's head was light with the delicious poison of
that exquisite wine. So transparently white grew his skin, so huge and
velvety his black eyes, so serious his finely chiselled mouth, that even
Celestine and Cerisette began to feel, somewhere beneath that hardened
outer shell of "temperament," a disregarded organ filled with a
long-forgotten, aching sensation that was not to be encouraged.
Regarding the quiet boy whose gold embroidery glittered so bravely in
the light, they grew painfully silent; and in that silence secretly
reproached the man who put them to such abominable usage. Indeed,
Gregoriev himself, always quick to take the temperature of a company,
was presently amazed at the tone beginning to prevail over this one. The
screaming laughter had been modified; the unquestionable conversations
stilled. But the wine, for these very reasons, was flowing faster, as
each member of that company sought to deaden those strangely roused
sensations which most of them had believed forever dead for them.
Gregoriev perceived how many eyes remained fixed reflectively on the
white face of the young Prince, in whose eyes was beginning to dawn a
look of comprehension. And they saw with fear the gleam of mockery that
was glowing in Michael's orbs. The host, indeed, had planned, but found
no time in which to execute, a new and daring _coup_, before his son had
sprung to his feet, lifted his brimming glass in a hand grown tremulous,
and dashed it violently at the nearest wall, where it shivered into
splinters, its contents falling, in one heavy, golden mass, upon the
rug. Then, mouth set, head erect, he turned from the company and walked
steadily out of the room. But, the door once closed behind him, once out
of range of his father's mocking eyes, he began to run, madly, through
the narrow corridor, into the central hall and up the staircase, whence
he presently precipitated himself into the bedroom of his mother, who
was sitting in a lounging-chair before a blazing fire.

At the unexpected appearance, Sophia rose with a cry. Only the angels
could have read all the anguish which that utterance bore from her--all
the