ne, was
that of conduct unbecoming an officer of the guard: conduct which,
though it might be laid to the door of almost any unmarried officer in
the service, nobody had ever before dreamed of forcing home for
judgment. But at last, it seemed, there was a man willing and ready, for
the sake of an old spite, to risk shattering his own glass house to
splinters for the sake of a revenge. Brodsky was determined, immediately
upon Ivan's return, to summon him to a court-martial; and, since he was
not a man to keep silence with regard to his plans, the tale, with its
piquant references to Brodsky's private malice, was in everybody's
mouth, and was found spicy enough to sting the palate of the most jaded
scandal-monger in the army--in comparison with which that of a woman of
fifty years' residence in India, is not to be compared. But by the end
of April even this affair had been served up often enough to have grown
slightly stale; and Petersburg was now on the _qui vive_ for a
denouement.

It came, that denouement--well-timed: just when the clubs were full to
the brim, the barracks crowded, the city overflowing with _ennuyee_ men
and women who were preparing for their summer flight. But the first
scene of the last act was not watched by the outer world.

It was eleven o'clock on the morning of the 30th. De Windt, grown
desperate under the weight of his thoughts, flung his yellow novel into
the empty stove, and had just lounged back to the sofa when--the door
opened, quietly, and Ivan came in: Ivan, rather pale, but very
dignified: his head held high.

Vladimir turned on him, opened his lips, closed them again and gazed,
silently, at his comrade. Ivan returned the look for a few
seconds,--stared--read--possibly understood. At all events his face
suddenly quivered, and then--he began to laugh! He passed from one
paroxysm to another, till de Windt, in a blind rage, took him by the
shoulders and shook him, violently, to silence. Then, under a swift
reaction, he stood before the prodigal drooping like a school-boy under
his master's frown. But Ivan felt, apparently, no resentment. Presently
he went to the side-table, poured himself out three fingers of cognac,
drank it, and then, as he began to remove his dripping outer garments,
asked, rather briskly than otherwise:

"Well, Vladimir--out with it! What are they going to do about me?"

And Vladimir, half-irritated, but driven, in any case, to speech, told,
briefly and baldly, a