d vented upon him her preposterous species
of jealousy, she had gained thereby no good-will from the young man, who
worshipped her daughter from afar as a creature scarcely to be treated
as a mortal being.

Blindly persistent, Ivan refused to be discouraged by his misadventure.
For a month, at every hour of the day, he watched the door of the
Dravikine residence; but failed, by any strategy, to catch a single
glimpse of his pretty cousin. Nay--one exception there was! Upon a
reception-day he did find her in her mother's drawing-room, seated
before a samovar, prepared to answer "_oui_" or "_non_" to any remark
addressed to her. But Ivan had kept his place beside her for less than
ten minutes when he was superseded by a deprecating envoy from the
Countess. Fifteen minutes later he left the house and went raging home,
to endure, for the first time, serious pangs of jealousy. And, as he sat
listening to de Windt's calm prophecies of Nathalie's success, next
winter, as a debutante, he cursed volubly, under his breath, to think
how soon every wretched _roue_ in the city would be free to pollute the
spotless child with glances, with words, even, in dances, with a clasp
of her waist! De Windt, watching him covertly, said to himself that by
that time, should this madness continue, Ivan would be fit only for an
asylum.

Meantime, the season advanced. The great thaw came; and there would be
no more snow for months. Russia was a sea of mud. All young things were
harkening to the call of the spring: and youthful blood, like sap,
flowed fast. Ivan, vindictively acknowledging that, for the present, his
ideal was quite beyond him, became, to a certain extent, interested in
another woman, whose future career was destined, indeed, to touch his at
points many and strange.

This young person was called Irina Petrovna; and she was a recent
graduate of the Government School of Singing. Her father was one of the
violins in the opera orchestra. And it was a great day for him when his
daughter made her debut on the boards over his head. She made her first
appearance in a small role of a Mozart opera; achieving precisely the
success predicted for her by her ironic master: a success of form, of
face, above all, of manner. She had but a moderate voice, this
remarkable young person. But she suffered no stage-fright; and though
the ladies of the audience regarded her with no enthusiasm, it was to be
observed that the vast majority of the men in t