k and cap up from a
chair and strode from the room, leaving his son behind him. Presently,
however, Piotr came to lead away the dazed and bewildered boy.

Once more in his own room Ivan sat down, in a corner, to think. In the
beginning, he could only go over and over the recent scene. Considering
it, it seemed almost like some vivid dream, so unnatural had been his
father's conduct and manner of speech. And himself! How preposterously
he had behaved! Not a word, not a single sign of response or
comprehension could he remember having given. Certainly his father might
very well think him a--"milk-sop," was it, he had said?

For a day or two Ivan lived, in secret, through that scene. And after
forty-eight hours it dawned upon him that he was beginning to live in an
ever-increasing dread of that approaching supper-party, "at which he was
to become a Gregoriev!" Those over-sensitive, over-perceptive young
nerves of Ivan's had divined more of his father's mind than Michael
believed. And now a sure and certain instinct was warning the boy of
danger. Nevertheless--disobey the Prince's command? Ivan shivered. Not
appear, on his birthday evening, before the guests that would be--his?
Impossible! Well, something he had yet to do. There remained one command
of his father's which, up to this moment, he had felt reluctant to
follow. This was the message to his mother. Should he take it to her
now; or should he not?

Ivan had reached this point in his reverie of the late afternoon of
Tuesday, when the Princess came quietly into the room where he sat. With
an exclamation, he rose, and went to her; and presently they were seated
side by side upon a long divan, Ivan's warm young hand clasped tightly
in two that were dry and burning. The boy, relieved, gave a long, quiet
sigh; but it was Sophia who began to speak.

"Ivan, yesterday you saw your father?"

"Ah! You _know_, then, mother?"

"Know--what, my son?"

"What--what he said? About my saint's-day supper? Mother, I was to tell
you. He said, tell you that, on the seventh--that's the day--your rule
is over, and I become a Gregoriev. But, oh mother, it's not so, you
know!"

This last Ivan added with eager haste; for Sophia had given a low cry,
and her hands so tightened upon his that the grip hurt, rather. But
after he had spoken she waited a little, her head bent so that he could
not see her face in the twilight. When at last she lifted it to him it
was very white; but the lips