lowed myself the luxury of explanation with you. But now I must
finish--_that_, and go."

"And where do you go, Irina Petrovna?" inquired Ivan, in the deep, calm
voice that suddenly bereft the woman of all her easy impertinence.

Unquestionably, she flushed. "Do not ask me. There is a refuge that is
mine for the asking--"

"Ah!--Well, about Joseph. I have been listening to his story as told by
a man--my friend. But I wish also to hear it from you, who know it
all.--How was it that you met?--And what has become of his real work: of
his talent?"

Irina did not immediately reply. Picking a small, gold case from a heap
of baubles at her side, she drew therefrom a cigarette, lighted it, with
that innate coquetry that was her bane, and believed that Ivan did not
see how the match trembled. After three puffs she suddenly turned her
great eyes on the man, and smiled, joyously:

"You embarrassed me, monsieur! Of my meeting with Joseph, of our life
here, I shall say nothing. His--fall, you may impute to me, wholly. And
yet--and yet, Ivan, in the face of all I have done, I still say to you,
Joseph's own weakness would have killed him in the end.--You, who are a
great artist, who have labored through poverty, through injustice,
through calumny, through the jealousy of friends and the libel of
enemies, and have conquered them all, you know well in your heart that
great ignorance, great vanity, great self-indulgence, belong not to the
characters of the truly great.--Oh I, I, Irina, the outcast, know that
well! Did I tempt _you_?--Those traits were Joseph's. I, who have loved
him, say it. For love of me and of himself, he degraded his art. For
himself, he has played and played and played, at the 'Masque,' till even
I bade him stop.--Roulette--baccarat--trente et quarante:--all he has,
is gone; and he has borrowed again and again from every one.--Oh bah!
You, mon Prince, can do nothing with or for him. Leave these rooms.
Return to your beautiful, calm life. This is not for you.--And as for
me"--she suddenly flung the cigarette away and leaped to her feet--"I,
also, am going!" And, throwing herself down beside the trunk, she began
to stuff the litter of the room into its capacious trays.

In the dim light, Ivan saw not the unsteadiness of her hand; nor knew
that her heart was throbbing, wildly; nor that she was fighting back an
impulse to crawl to him, miserably, on hands and knees, and beg for the
generosity of his great heart.