Feodor understood the hidden meaning of this apparently gracious and loving letter; he understood that he had fallen into disgrace—­not that he had committed any error or crime.  It was only that Count Orloff was handsomer and more amiable than himself, or at least that he seemed so to the empress.  Therefore Feodor’s presence was inconvenient to her; for at that time in the commencement of her reign, Catharine had still some modesty left, and the place of favorite had not yet become an official position at court, but only a public secret.  As yet, she avoided bringing the discharged favorite in contact with the newly appointed one, and therefore Feodor had to be removed before Count Alexis Orloff could enter on his duties.

Prince Feodor Stratimojeff crushed the perfumed imperial note in his hand, and muttered through his set teeth:  “She has sacrificed me to an Orloff!  She wishes to send me away, that she may more securely play this new farce of love.  Very well; I will go, but not to return to be deceived anew by her vows of love and glances of favor.  No! let this breach be eternal.  Catharine shall feel that, although an empress, she is a woman whom I despise.  Therefore let there be no word of farewell, not even the smallest request.  She bids me go, and I go.  And would it not seem as if Fate pointed out to me the way I am to go?  Is it not a strange chance that Catharine should choose me for this mission to Germany?”

It was indeed a singular accident that the empress unintentionally should have sent back her discharged favorite to the only woman whom he had ever loved.  He was sent as ambassador extraordinary to Berlin, to press more urgently her claims on a Prussian banker, to bring up before the Prussian department for foreign affairs the merchant John Gotzkowsky with regard to her demand for two millions of dollars; and, in case he refused to pay it, to try in a diplomatic way whether Prussia could not he induced to support this demand of the empress, and procure immediate payment.

This was the mission which Catharine had confided to Prince Stratimojeff, who, when he determined to undertake it, said to himself:  “I will take vengeance on this proud woman who thinks to cast me off like a toy of which she has tired; I will show her that my heart is unmoved by her infidelity; I will present to her my young wife, whose beauty, youth, and innocence will cause her to blush for shame.”

Never had he been so fascinating and lively, so brilliant and sparkling with wit, as on the evening preceding his departure.  His jests were the boldest and freest; they made even the empress blush, and sent her blood hot and bounding through her veins.  The court, that would have been delighted to have seen the long-envied and hated favorite now abashed and humbled before his newly-declared successor, remarked with astonishment and bitter mortification that the humiliation was changed into a triumph; for the empress, charmed by his amiability and wit, seemed to turn her heart again toward him, and to entreat him with the tenderest looks to forgive her faithlessness.  She had already forgotten the unfortunate embassy which was to remove Feodor from her court, when he himself came to remind her of it.