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.”