hement protests. How could he understand that, even with her, the
signs and formalities, the insignia and paraphernalia of a fashionable
marriage, even more than marriage itself, form, in the mind of a young
girl, the grand aim, centre, end, even, of all life. And he was asking
her to forget all these!--Preposterous--love him though she did! No.
They were engaged. That she allowed. And was not that enough for one
day?--Ivan could not gainsay her.--Well, then, let him come at once to
her father. And perhaps on the morrow--the wonderful morrow--the court
journal would make formal announcement of their betrothal, and she would
be that most interesting (?) of feminine creatures, a girl engaged!

Thus she talked: thus dreamed. And Ivan, in a little paradise of his
own, was drawn, in spite of himself, into her spirit of enthusiasm. He
promised to go, that very evening, to his uncle. And so, at length, he
left her, half a block from the Dravikine house, and went his way
towards his apartment, already beginning on the fourth year of his
married life.

* * * * *

It was half-past eight o'clock that evening when Lieutenant Gregoriev,
shivering with something more than cold, stood at the door of the
Dravikine house. When it opened, he was informed at once that Monsieur
le Comte was at home; and the impenetrable butler, bursting with
interest, showed him solemnly to the library, on the threshold of which
stood Ivan's shadowy fate, black-robed. For five minutes the Lieutenant
waited, his heart in his mouth, his dry tongue vainly trying to repeat
that careful little speech, the original of which he had unfortunately
left on the bureau of his room in his own apartment.

In the small _salon_ of that apartment, meantime, sat Vladimir de Windt,
waiting, uneasily, and making futile attempts to read. For Ivan's sake
he was neglecting all his engagements for the evening and the night,
that he might be the first to congratulate his chum on his engagement.
The minutes passed. More than an hour, now, since Ivan had bidden him a
shaky good-night! And the longer the wait, the more hopeful things must
naturally look. An accepted man sits late with his _fiancee_, discussing
the most important question in the world, while the serfs group
themselves intelligently round the key-hole. And yet, as the clock
ticked off second after second, the faithful Vladimir grew unaccountably
fretful and restless. Time was, indeed,