stified.
More yet, special favor was shown him. He passed his summer in a long
and important journey through Southern Russia, travelling especially
through battle-scarred Crimea, and, returning with his report to Moscow,
found awaiting him that for which he had vainly intrigued for years.
Thus his wife was hastily summoned from her retirement at Baden-Baden,
where she had been joyously living with Ivan and her sister; and she
returned, drearily, to Moscow, to receive a blow she had never thought
to dread.

It was again the evening of October seventh when Ivan, called from the
quiet festivity he was enjoying with his mother and Ludmillo, followed
Piotr unwillingly into the presence of his father, who awaited him in
his official room. Left alone at the closed door, Ivan entered, slowly,
and was motioned to a seat opposite his father at the paper-piled table.

For a moment or two Michael regarded him thoughtfully. Then all at once
he cried out: "_You_ my son! God! What a baby it is!"

Ivan's face flamed and his lips twitched; but, in the end, he held his
tongue. After all, did it matter what this man said?

Michael, watching him, and in some measure reading his thought, let his
face soften again. "Well, it may be better that way. Listen,
Mikhailovitch! I have done for you what has been done for no Gregoriev
before. You are to be pushed up the ladder. You're to be deostracized.
In the end, you'll find that Petersburg will receive you. They must; for
at last I've obtained your commission in the Cadet Corps: something
that none of our race has ever had. I tried, of course, for the Pages,
but that they wouldn't give. Nevertheless, you'll come out an ensign of
the line, and I can buy your lieutenancy in a guard regiment within the
month. You understand?"

Michael paused, and fixed his keen eyes on the boy who was now on his
feet, motionless, his brows knitted. He was a little bewildered by the
unexpectedness of the thing. Yet he did understand--tumultuously, what
that great news meant.

"When do I leave here?" he asked, presently, in a voice that was strange
to him.

"In one week--to the day. There are preparations to be made. You go like
the Prince you are. Christ! If _I_ had had the chance!"

This last, muttered exclamation, Ivan scarcely heard. He was still
staring down at the table, trying to readjust himself, to resolve his
thoughts into either joy, or--more difficult--regret. The silence seemed
longer than it wa