ion was aging a
year a day as he raved, helpless and mad with fury, at the folly of his
son and the treacherous villany of Brodsky. Privately, Russian
officialdom was shaken to its depths. But daily the masks were adjusted,
and the farce of virtue, within and without that court, went on; while
the people, even to the peasants, laughed at the mockery of it all. Some
sort of compensation, later on, Michael Gregoriev did obtain. In the
autumn of that year Foma Vassilyitch Brodsky went to Siberia, as the
result of an examination of certain peculations, the charge of which,
together with overwhelming proof, was brought by Prince Gregoriev of
Moscow.

But that was a sorry triumph: the victor a broken man. For Michael
Gregoriev had lost his son; and, with him, all those great ambitions for
which he had toiled and cheated and blackmailed throughout a lifetime.

Finally, on the morning of May 17th, Ivan Gregoriev, degraded from his
rank, driven in disgrace from the army, sat alone in his bedroom conning
over the words of the telegram clutched in his listless hand: words
whereby he understood that he was no longer the son of his father, but
sat, a penniless outcast, alone in a pitiless, jeering world.

CHAPTER X

SELF-DESTINY

Ivan had begun to pay his price--not for a foolish escapade, but for his
sonship among the Great that labor and may not rest. It was, perhaps, a
tardy beginning for a career such as his must be: but it was a complete
one, at least. The world lay all before him where to choose:--a blessing
which he, however, at this moment, appreciated not at all.

During the past hideous days, it had seemed to Ivan that he was living
wholly in the memory of his cousin. It was the picture of her that had
borne him through the time of dreadful notoriety. But now, on the
morning after the receipt of that harsh telegram, Nathalie and all her
history with him, had passed completely from his mind, as something
belonging to a forgotten existence. He rose early, after a restless,
feverish night. During the fumbling toilet that followed, he stopped
short, more than once, to throw himself into the nearest chair appalled
and overcome by some fresh view of the situation which he was beginning,
only now, fully to realize. Moreover, he was suffering physically. All
through the late afternoon and evening of the day before he had sat
alone with de Windt, in the next room, drinking steadily, till, for
perhaps the first time i