"These friends of yours," he said aside to her, before leaving, "are nice people to know. But----"
And he broke off, meeting her eyes.
"I don't understand," said his hostess, with a perplexed look.
"Then I daren't try to make you."
A few days after, at the great house of the great Russian lady, he ascended the stairs without a tremor, glanced round the room with indifference. No one would be there whom he could not face calmly. Brilliant women awed him a little at first, but it was not till afterwards, in the broken night following such occasions as this, that they had power over his imagination; then he saw them, drawn upon darkness, their beauty without that halo of worldly grandeur which would not allow him to forget the gulf between them. The hostess herself shone by quality of intellect rather than by charm of feature; she greeted him with subtlest flattery, a word or two of simple friendliness in her own language, and was presenting him to her husband, when, from the doorway, sounded a name which made Otway's heart leap, and left him tongue-tied.
"Mrs. Borisoff and Miss Derwent."
He turned, but with eyes downcast: for a moment he durst not raise them. He moved, insensibly, a few steps backward, shadowed himself behind two men who were conversing together. And at length he looked.
With thrill of marvelling and rapture, with chill of self-abasement. When, years ago, he saw Irene in the dress of ceremony, she seemed to him peerlessly radiant; but it was the beauty and the dignity of one still girlish. What he now beheld was the exquisite fulfilment of that bright promise. He had not erred in worship; she who had ever been to him the light of life, the beacon of his passionate soul, shone before him supreme among women. What head so noble in its unconscious royalty! What form so faultless in its mould and bearing! He heard her speak--the graceful nothings of introduction and recognition; it was Irene's voice toned to a fuller music. Then her face dazzled, grew distant; he turned away to command himself.
Mrs. Borisoff spoke beside him.
"Have you no good-evening for me?"
"So this is what you meant?"
"You have a way of speaking in riddles."
"And you--a way of acting divinely. Tell me," his voice sank, and his words were hurried. "May I go up to her as any acquaintance would? May I presume that she knows me?"
"You mean Miss Derwent? But--why not? I don't understand you."
"No--I forget--it seems to you absurd. Of course--she wrote and introduced me to you----"
"You are amusing--which is more than can be said of everyone."
She bent her head and turned to speak with someone else. Piers, with what courage he knew not, stepped across the carpet to where Miss Derwent was sitting. She saw his approach, and held her hand to him as if they had met only the other day. That her complexion was a little warmer than its wont, Piers had no power of perceiving; he saw only her eyes, soft-shining as they rose to his, in their depths an infinite gentleness.
"How glad I am that you got my letter just before leaving Petersburg!"
"How kind of you to introduce me to Mrs. Borisoff!"
"I thought you would soon be friends."
It was all they could say. At this moment, the host murmured his request that Otway would take down Mrs. Borisoff; the hostess led up someone to be introduced to Miss Derwent. Then the procession began.
Piers was both disappointed and relieved. To have felt the touch upon his arm of Irene's hand would have been a delight unutterable, yet to desire it was presumption. He was not worthy of that companionship; it would have been unjust to Irene to oblige her to sit by him through the dinner, with the inevitable thoughts rising in her mind. Better to see her from a distance--though it was hard when she smiled at the distinguished and clever-looking man who talked, talked. It cost him, at first, no small effort to pay becoming attention to Mrs. Borisoff; the lady on his other hand, a brilliant beauty, moved him to a feeling almost hostile--he knew not why. But as the dinner progressed, as the kindly vintage circled in his blood, he felt the stirrings of a deep joy. By his own effort he had won reception into Irene's world. It was something; it was much--remembering all that had gone before.
He spoke softly to his partner.
"I am going to drink a silent health--that of my friend Korolevitch. To him I owe everything."
"I don't believe _that_, but I will drink it too--I was speaking of him to Miss Derwent. She wants to know all about the Dukhobortsi. Instruct her, afterwards, if you get a chance. Do you think her altered?"
"No--yes!"
"By the bye, how long is it really since you first knew her?"
"Eight years--just eight years."
"You speak as if it were eighty."
"Why, so it seems, when I look back. I was a boy, and had the strangest notions of the world."
"You shall tell me all about that some day," said Mrs. Borisoff, glancing at him. "At the Castle, perhaps----"
"Oh yes! At the Castle!"
When the company divided, and Piers had watched Irene pass out of sight, he sat down with a tired indifference. But his host drew him into conversation on Russian subjects, and, as had happened before now in gatherings of this kind, Otway presently found himself amid attentive listeners, whilst he talked of things that interested him. At such moments he had an irreflective courage, which prompted him to utter what he thought without regard to anything but the common civilities of life. His opinions might excite surprise; but they did not give offence; for they seemed impersonal, the natural outcome of honest and capable observation, with never a touch of national prejudice or individual conceit. It was well, perhaps, for the young man's natural modesty, that he did not hear certain remarks afterwards exchanged between the more intelligent of his hearers.
When they passed to the drawing-room, the piano was sounding there. It stopped; the player rose, and moved away, but not before Piers had seen that it was Irene. He felt robbed of a delight. Oh, to hear Irene play!
Better was in store for him. With a boldness natural to the hour, he drew nearer, nearer, watching his opportunity. The chair by Irene's side became vacant; he stepped forward, and was met with a frank countenance, which invited him to take the coveted place. Miss Derwent spoke at once of her interest in the Russian sectaries with whom--she had heard--Otway was well acquainted, the people called Dukhobortsi, who held the carrying of arms a sin, and suffered persecution because of their conscientious refusal to perform military service. Piers spoke with enthusiasm of these people.
"They uphold the ideal above all necessary to our time. We ought to be rapidly outgrowing warfare; isn't that the obvious next step in civilisation? It seems a commonplace that everyone should look to that end, and strive for it. Yet we're going back--there's a military reaction--fighting is glorified by everyone who has a loud voice, and in no country more than in England. I wish you could hear a Russian friend of mine speak about it, a rich man who has just given up everything to join the Dukhobortsi. I never knew before what religious passion meant. And it seems to me that this is the world's only hope--peace made a religion. The forms don't matter; only let the supreme end be peace. It is what people have talked so much about--the religion of the future."
His tones moved the listener, as appeared in her look and attitude.
"Surely all the best in every country lean to it," she said.
"Of course! That's our hope--but at the same time the pitiful thing; for the best hold back, keep silence, as if their quiet contempt could prevail against