ng
admiration. For even at fourteen Nathalie Dravikine was very beautiful,
in a delicate, flower-like way. Her complexion was clear and pale, the
blood which ran beneath it showing only under the stress of some
emotion, when it would suffuse her whole face with waves of exquisite
color. Her delicate head bore a weight, almost too great, of fine,
blue-black hair, just now hanging in a heavy plait to her knees. Her
eyes, large and velvety as Ivan's own, were, however, of a shade
indescribable, chameleon-like: one day varying between beryl and
aqua-marine, anon of a light hazel, and finally, in moments of
excitement, grief, or joy, of a deep, baffling black. Hitherto, Ivan had
been undecided about their color; but to-night, as he saw them run
their gamut from light to that tender dark, he felt a strange, quivering
half-fear, half-joy, stirring his heart; and in one moment it had become
impossible for him to look her in the eyes again and retain any sort of
composure. Moreover, as he sat, red-eyed and conscious, in a chair
between aunt and cousin, it seemed to him as if some one were pouring a
cool balm over the burning wound within him: as if, already, his
mother's strange promise were finding fulfilment, and she herself, or
her fair spirit, stood at his side, her gentle hand upon his shoulder, a
smile of the old, loving companionship in her deep eyes. He did not know
whether it were minutes or hours before, with a long sigh, he rose,
kissed his aunt, drew back with flaming face from Nathalie's tentative
advance, but finally, with throbbing heart, just touched her cheek in
the usual place, and then ran off, glad of the darkness in the passage
outside. Unlike the traditional young lover, however, he was not
destined to spend the dark hours in waking dreams of his love. Nay, the
pretty child did him better service. That night, for the first time in
ninety-six weary hours, he slept, soundly and dreamlessly, till Alexei
came to call him, when he rose with a feeling of great strangeness, of
irrevocable change, upon him, as he faced a final joyless day.

There was no help for it. He must return, that afternoon, to the Corps;
where now there would be no weekly breaks in his monotony of
unhappiness. So much he learned in a brief, uncomfortable interview with
his father, immediately after breakfast. And when he was dismissed, he
understood that it was Prince Michael's farewell to him for an
indefinite period: a fact which troubled