"The Duke has gone."

"Gone? What! The devil he has!"

"Sh-h!--not five minutes ago! A message came from the Tsar himself.

He has just slipped away."

The officer gazed straight ahead of him smiling, and bowed to a couple ascending the stair-case. His lips parted as if in greeting. "Did he send you to tell me?"

"No, the d.u.c.h.ess. She has made some excuse and is receiving alone. No one suspects, not yet; but the guests must be diverted, or else--"

"Be still, Boris, be still, you shake the leaves like a bull. When will he return?"

"By midnight, Prince. Could you start the mazurka at once?"

"Presently, Boris. Go and tell my mother I will--presently. The Countess is late, unaccountably late! Is the snow heavy to-night on the quay; are the sledges blocked? Hiss-st!--There she comes!"

The trembling of the leaves ceased suddenly and the young officer leaned forward, his sword clanking, his eyes crossed and fixed on a vague white spot in the distant foyer.

"She is coming! How slowly she moves! What a throng!--There, she comes, white and sweet like a lily, a flower!" The Prince waved his hand; his sword clanked again. "No, she doesn't see me; her eyes are on the ground--and her hair, it gleams like a crown."

The two figures climbing the grand marble stair-case moved forward slowly, step by step, mingling with the flash and colour of the crowd, lost for a moment at the bend, then reappearing again. The man, evidently a general, was magnificent in his uniform; his breast regal with orders and medals, his grey head held high and his form stiff and straight. On his arm was the Countess, his daughter.

She clung to him, her lips were smiling and her white robes trailed the marble behind her. She was like a young queen, charming and gracious, bowing to right and to left. As the groups drew aside to let her pa.s.s, they whispered together, looking up at the carved bal.u.s.trade; then the crowd closed again.

At the top of the stair-case the Prince sprang forward. He greeted the General hastily, saluting. Then the watchers behind saw how the Countess paused, hesitated, and then, at a few whispered words from the Prince, placed her hand on his arm and the two young figures, the white and the scarlet, disappeared within the doorway.

The violins rose and fell in a dreamy measure. From the sculptured gallery the sound came mysterious, enchanting, swaying the feet with the force of its rhythm.

"Not to-night," said the Countess, "No!" She drew herself away from the arm of the Prince and her lashes drooped over her eyes. "I am tired--later perhaps, Prince."

Her voice, low and remonstrating, was lost in the swing of the waltz.

With a sudden, swift movement the scarlet and white seemed welded together, whirling into the vortex of light and of motion.

No word was exchanged. They whirled, gliding, twisting in and out among the dancers; and suddenly, swiftly, as at a signal, the music broke into the measure of the mazurka. A cry went up from the throng.

In a twinkling the floor was cleared, the crowd pressed back against the columns; under the reddish marble of the dome four couples gathered, poised hand in hand.

The uniforms of the officers glowed in the light, rich and scarlet, faced with silver and gold. The gowns of their partners were brocade and velvet, purple and crimson, lilac and pearl. Then from the balcony, high up, unseen, the rhythm changed again like a flash, and with it the national dance began.

At first the movements were slow, the steps graceful; the feet seemed scarcely to move, barely gliding over the floor. One by one the couples retreated, the last left alone; and then interchanging. The music grew faster. In that moment, when they were left alone, the Prince bent his head to the slim, swaying whiteness by his side:

"Why did you come so late?" he whispered, "Where were you?"

The Countess' hand was cold like ice. She drew it away and danced on; then she whispered back:

"The Duke! Where is he to-night? He is not here! Why is the mazurka so early, tell me."

They interchanged again.

"Hush," said the Prince, "You noticed?--Don't speak. He has gone to the Tsar.--What is it? Are you ill?"

"He has--gone?"

"Dance, Countess, dance. Don't stop; are you mad? Come nearer.

Hush!--The Tsar sent for him, but he will be back at midnight. No one must know."

The figure of the mazurka grew stranger and more complicated. When they were thrown together again, the Countess lifted her blue eyes to the eyes of the Prince. They seemed to look at her and yet to look past her; they were crossed. She shivered slightly and turned her head. Her white figure, slender and light as thistledown, floated away from him, and then in a moment she was back, their hands had touched; they were whirling together faster and faster, the tips of her slippers scarcely touching the floor. She closed her eyes.

"You won't tell, not a soul, I can trust you?" whispered the Prince.

"Come closer, closer. There is a plot to-night. Boris told me. The Secret Service men are everywhere, watching. Don't be frightened, Countess--your hand is so cold. Can you hear me? Bend your head--so!

They hope to make arrests before he returns."

"When--when does he return?"

"Sh--h! At midnight. Dance faster, faster--Let yourself go!"

The music broke into a mad riot of rhythm; the violins seemed to run races with one another in an intoxication of sound, pulsing, penetrating, overpowering. The white figure twirled in the Prince's arms, her gold hair a blot against the scarlet of his sleeve, faster and faster. Her head drooped; her eyes closed again.

The rhythm was alive, tempting, subtle, like a madness in the veins; and as they whirled, the rubato, dreamy, sudden, caught them as in a leash; the steps faltered, slower, more lingering; slower, still slower until the music stopped, dying away into the dome of the vault in a last faint echo of sound.

The Countess swayed suddenly.

Her face was white as the lace on her bosom, and her eyes grew dark and big, with black shadows sweeping her cheeks. Others stepped forward to the dance; their places were filled and the music commenced again.

"Lean on me," whispered the Prince, "Are you ill? Countess, lean on my arm--so."

His voice was hoa.r.s.e and excited. He was swaying a little himself from the intoxication of the dance.

"Take me away somewhere, some quiet place," she whispered back. "Let me rest--I am faint."

He drew her after him and the two figures, the scarlet and the white, pa.s.sed under the archway into a salon beyond. The Prince raised a curtain: "This is the Duke's own room," he said in her ear, "Go under--be quick!"

The curtain fell heavily behind them and the two stood alone in the Grand-Duke's room. There was a desk in the corner littered with papers, a lamp stood beside, heavily shaded, and back in the shadowy recesses was a couch.

"Help me there," whispered the Countess, "And then go--go, Prince, leave me. My head is on fire! See, my cheeks, my hands, how they burn? Help me to the couch."

She staggered and almost fell as they approached it, burying her face in her hands.

"I can't leave you," said the Prince. He was on his knees beside her, kissing her hands, trying to draw them down from her face. "Kaya, what is the matter? Don't hide your eyes--look at me. Shall I call some one? Are you ill?"

The Countess drew back against the cushions, shuddering, pushing him from her: "Don't call any one," she said, "Give me that water on the table there." Her eyes were wide open now and dilated; the hair fell disordered in golden rings and waves about the oval of her face. She drew her breath heavily; her bosom rising and falling like waves after a storm. One hand pressed her lace as if to clutch the pulsing and steady it; the other held the gla.s.s to her trembling lips.

The Prince hovered over the couch. He was pale and the crossing of his eyes was more p.r.o.nounced than ever. "Drink now," he whispered soothingly as if to a child in trouble, "Drink it slowly. It is wine, not water, and will bring back your strength. It was the dance; ah, it was so fast, so mad. You were wonderful! The blood beats in my veins still; I can feel the rhythm throbbing, can you? Speak to me, Countess--are you better?"

"Is any one here," said the girl faintly, "Are we alone?"

"Yes, yes, we are alone."

"Will the Duke come in?"