His habits were vigorous.  Rising very early, he walked across the Park, and had a swim in the Serpentine.  The hours of the solid day he spent, for the most part, in study at the British Museum.  Then, if he had no engagement, he generally got by train well out of town, and walked in sweet air until nightfall; or, if weather were bad, he granted himself the luxury of horse-hire, and rode—­rode, teeth set against wind and rain.  This earned him sleep—­his daily prayer to the gods.

At the date appointed, he went in search of Mrs. Borisoff, who welcomed him cordially.  Her first inquiry was whether he had got the Castle.

“I have got it,” Piers replied, and entered into particulars.  They talked about it like children anticipating a holiday.  Mrs. Borisoff then questioned him about his doings since he had been in England.  On his mentioning a certain great lady, a Russian, with whom he was to dine next week, his friend replied with a laugh, which she refused to explain.

“When can you spend an evening here?  I don’t mean a dinner.  I’ll give you something to eat, but it doesn’t count; you come to talk, as I know you can, though you didn’t let me suspect it at Petersburg.  I shall have one or two others, old chums, not respectable people.  Name your own day.”

When the evening came, Piers entered Mrs. Borisoff’s drawing-room with trepidation.  He glanced at the guest who had already arrived—­ a lady unknown to him.  When again the door opened, he looked, trembling.  His fearful hope ended only in a headache, but he talked, as was expected of him, and the hostess smiled approval.

“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.