evelation; and it was a moment or two before he
put his hand into that of Nicholas, and answered, simply: "Yes, I will
go."

"Soon?"

"Oh yes." The reply had a weary tone. "Yes. I will go to-day."

Rubinstein nodded with satisfaction. His self-imposed mission was
accomplished. A moment later, after a close hand-clasp, he was gone.

It was the first Wednesday of the new year. For the past three months
Ivan, who had been on a distant country estate, engrossed in his
father's affairs, had heard nothing of the gossip of Moscow. Two days
after his return, Nicholas came to him with the story of Joseph's
disgrace and disaster; the tale over which the malignant city was now
holding its sides with amusement. Ivan, sick with amazement and regret,
had promised his old friend to seek the young fool out and--and what?
Remonstrate--with madness? Right, in an hour or two, a situation that
was the climax of months of wrong? Impossible! All Ivan's instincts
rebelled against the idea. Nevertheless, as Nicholas had clearly pointed
out, something must be done. Yet who but he, Joseph's first friend in
Russia, had the faintest chance of success: of once more setting those
purposeless feet on the upward path?--Thus, in the end, with his mood an
indecisive mixture of pity and revolt, Ivan prepared himself for the
necessary visit.

Nicholas and he had been lunching together in the Gregoriev palace. The
brief midwinter day was still bright when the Prince's sleigh set its
owner down in the Academy Quarter, a door or two away from the tall
house in which Joseph still retained his rooms. Ivan knew his way well
enough; but he stood in the empty hall before the closed door for some
seconds before he could bring himself to knock, so strong was his
feeling of impotence, his dread of intruding into these two, alien
lives. At length, stifling his thoughts, he hastily clacked the brass
knocker of the door.

A moment. Then came the sound of a woman's voice, muffled, but
startlingly familiar:

"C'est toi, Joseph?"

Instantly, all the blood in Ivan's body rushed to his brain. Then,
fiercely seizing the door, he thrust it open, strode into the studio,
and found himself face to face with Irina Petrovna.

Irina was garbed very much _en negligee_, but Ivan's profound
amazement, (by some freak of chance the woman's name had never been
mentioned to him) for a few seconds prevented his noticing that she was
standing beside a trunk half filled with her