u," interrupted the other, "eh, what--you? Tysyacha
chertei[2]! What do you mean?"

The master of the black sleigh stood up suddenly and threw back his
cloak with a haughty gesture. He was in uniform and his breast
glittered with orders. His cap fell back from his face, and his eyes,
small and black and crossed, his beaked nose, his grey upturned
mustache, showed distinctly in the moonlight. The face was known to
every Russian, young and old, rich and poor--the Grand-Duke Stepan.

The youth made a low obeisance; then he tossed the hair away from his
brows and laughed: "True, your highness," he said with mock humility,
"I should have said--'until we both get there,' of course. Your
pardon, sire."

The Duke leaned forward: "Stop--!" he exclaimed, "Your face--certainly
somewhere I have seen it--Wait!"

The driver of the troika reined in the panting horses three abreast.
They pawed the snow, still prancing a little and trembling, their bits
flecked with foam. The youth saluted with one hand carelessly, while
with the other he grasped the dark, oblong object that was not a bomb.

"Au revoir, your Grace," he cried, "You have seen me before and you
will see me again, to-night, if this arm of mine recovers--" He
laughed:--"I am Velasco."

As he spoke the horses leaped forward and the troika, darting across
the moonlight of the Square, disappeared into the shadows behind the
Mariinski.

The Duke gazed after it petrified: "Velasco!" he said, "And I all but
twisted his wrist!--Ye gods!

"Go on, Pierre, go on!"

The Theatre was superbly lighted, crowded from the pit to the gallery,
from the orchestra chairs to the Bel-Etage with the cream of St.
Petersburg aristocracy.

It was like a vast garden of colour.

The brilliant uniforms of the officers mingled with the more delicate
hues of ecru and rose, sky-blue and palest heliotrope of the loggias.
Fans waved here and there over the house, fluttering, flashing like
myriads of butterfly wings. The stage was filled with the black and
white of the orchestra and the musicians sat waiting, the conductor
gnawing his long mustache in an agony of doubt and bewilderment.

Gradually a hush stole over the House. The fans waved less regularly;
the uniforms and the more delicate hues whispered together, glancing
first at a box on the first tier, which was still empty, and then at
the stage door and back again.

Where was the Grand-Duke Stepan, and where was the star, th