s. Then Ivan looked up, silently asking permission to
go. But he found his father's unholy eyes fixed on him, and
instinctively he shrank backward, trying to cover his naked soul from
that piercing vision.

"Wait! I've not finished yet. I want you to see just what I'm giving
you. I want you to understand the start you're getting. Do you realize
that, unless you make an unholy fool of yourself, within four years all
Petersburg will be open to you? At twenty you will penetrate to those
places to which I--_I_, with all the--experience, and the intimate
knowledge I've got, shall never be admitted. I can buy commissions for
you in any regiment. But in the end I don't intend you for the army. Oh,
if I could have started you in the Pages Corps! Still, your advance is
certain. And this is my first, middle, and last advice to you: walk
instantly to the very centre of the first high intrigue that presents
itself--everywhere. You'll find them even at the Corps--in your first
year. For in Russia, Ivan, a full comprehension of that great game means
power. Understand, the utterance of such a sentiment would mean Siberia.
But this young Alexander is simply a puppy. He's to be influenced by a
footman--by a serf! See that you reach him, then. Study him: learn him:
absorb him. Then find your own methods and stick to them; stopping at
absolutely nothing they may carry you to. It's the stopping, sooner or
later, that is the universal mistake: the mistake I've never made--else
I should have been in the gutter yet. You begin, Ivan, where I end. I
see no limit for you. Petersburg will hold more than one empty
portfolio. But you must not look below the highest. Take the Interior
for yourself. To-night, Ivan, I, your father, make you Premier of
Russia. Am I so careless of my son?"

Once more Michael's gloomy, flashing eyes were fastened upon Ivan's
uplifted face; nor was he wholly dissatisfied at the unquestionable
interest he perceived in the boy's expression. Ivan, indeed, felt
petrified at the vista opened up before him. It seemed as if his
father's words were burning themselves into his brain. And yet, even as
he waited, quietly, for the dismissal that soon came, these ambitions of
his father's for him were succeeded by something all his own: a thing as
yet only half understood, and held secret in his heart out of dread of
hearing it mocked or of finding it something common to all men. While,
then, the words "Premier of Russia" still echoe