e fashionable part of the town, passing from the
shopping district into the old Equerries' quarter lying behind, and west
of, the Kremlin hill. It was possible that he had some hazy idea of
startling his wife's family by an unwelcome visit; and from them gaining
the latest gossip concerning last night's ball. But the idea remained
nebulous. Nicholas had responded too readily to his touch, the few lines
of cipher on his map had proved too disturbing to the royal mind, for
the tormentor's pride not to have been restored by such evidence of his
power. He knew well that their recent talk, in which he had played his
difficult part with genius, had left his Majesty fearful, not of
revelations concerning mere peculations or juggled laws, but of
something touching his very seat upon the throne; a certain disclosure
that might bring up again that old, forgotten matter of his unnatural
accession to the throne in place of his elder brother Constantine. And
Michael had an unfounded belief that the Czar would, therefore, in some
unknown way, bring him, peaceably, the social power he now trebly
desired. Therefore it was not difficult to turn him from his half-formed
purpose.

Leaving the great street for the comparatively quiet Nikolskaia, he
presently encountered one of the unofficial companions of his leisure
hours: a retired army officer, with a reputation at cards which few
gamblers cared to ignore. Colonel Lodoroff greeted the Prince with a
customary effusion, and found little difficulty in drawing him on to a
certain small club, maintained by twenty members, of which the very
existence was unknown to outsiders. Here, by day or by night, could be
found companions for any carousal, partners for any known game of skill
or chance; in short, that species of person which the ordinary club does
its best to exclude. The small building's exquisitely decorated rooms
were not, however, unfamiliar to the eyes of certain members of the
opposite sex, whose eligibility to admittance consisted only in certain
powers of attraction and entertainment.

Within the discreet recesses of this nameless organization, Michael
Petrovitch spent two or three agreeable hours. And finally, at six
o'clock--more than an hour after despatching a short message to Piotr,
in Konnaia Square--Gregoriev, with Lodoroff, three other men, and
Mesdames Nathalie, Anna, and Celestine, whose last names were as
changeable as their complexions, set off, in four public drosch