e lonely austerity of his life. In the
letter he enclosed an address--that of Rubinstein's Moscow apartment;
where, even should it not be his own abode, communications at least
would always reach him. And if his excellency would but send some word,
however brief, Ivan would gladly come to see him--not as a son,
necessarily, but as one to whom Prince Gregoriev's welfare could not but
be a matter of supreme interest and concern.

The writer of this missive spent time and pains upon its composition;
and succeeded in expressing himself with clearness and considerable
delicacy, though making very evident the fact that he neither desired
nor would accept the slightest pecuniary assistance from one who had so
furiously disowned and deserted him in his hour of sore need.

It may have been this final implication, or, more probably, the one
other unfortunate suggestion in the letter, relating to the importance
to the writer of Michael's welfare--(interpreted _health_)--which the
father angrily deduced as a desire for his death and the hope of speedy
inheritance, which once more undid Ivan with the desolate, stubborn,
remorsefully remorseless old man, to whom, in his secret soul, the boy
was still the apple of his eye, the greatest and final disappointment of
his harsh life. Certainly Ivan waited in vain for the requested message.
But before this disappointment came, he had passed through another
anxiously waited experience. For, on the same day that he posted the
letter to Moscow, he took his courage into his hands and went, for the
first time since the February of nearly five years ago, to the house in
the Serghievskaia, where a brisk young footman informed him suavely that
Madame la Comtesse received.

It was forty minutes later when Ivan emerged from the house, his brain
whirling in as great a tumult of emotions as were the hearts of two
women whom he left behind him. Yet the idea of emotion on his aunt's
part would never have occurred to him; and of the other, he knew
nothing. Countess Caroline was past mistress in the worldling's
art of subtle, refined, undiscoverable patronage, snobbery,
indifference--insult if you will. With apparently exactly the same quiet
voice and manner, she could warm the soul of a Royal Duchess with the
delightfulest flattery; while, in the intervals between phrases, she
would shrivel an undesirable caller into a state of quivering apology
for the presumption of invading the house of so lofty a pe