The two men rose, simultaneously. Ivan was very pale. He was still in the first shock of full revelation; and it was a moment or two before he put his hand into that of Nicholas, and answered, simply: "Yes, I will go."
"Soon?"
"Oh yes." The reply had a weary tone. "Yes. I will go to-day."
Rubinstein nodded with satisfaction. His self-imposed mission was accomplished. A moment later, after a close hand-clasp, he was gone.
It was the first Wednesday of the new year. For the past three months Ivan, who had been on a distant country estate, engrossed in his father's affairs, had heard nothing of the gossip of Moscow. Two days after his return, Nicholas came to him with the story of Joseph's disgrace and disaster; the tale over which the malignant city was now holding its sides with amusement. Ivan, sick with amazement and regret, had promised his old friend to seek the young fool out and—and what? Remonstrate—with madness? Right, in an hour or two, a situation that was the climax of months of wrong? Impossible! All Ivan's instincts rebelled against the idea. Nevertheless, as Nicholas had clearly pointed out, something must be done. Yet who but he, Joseph's first friend in Russia, had the faintest chance of success: of once more setting those purposeless feet on the upward path?—Thus, in the end, with his mood an indecisive mixture of pity and revolt, Ivan prepared himself for the necessary visit.
Nicholas and he had been lunching together in the Gregoriev palace. The brief midwinter day was still bright when the Prince's sleigh set its owner down in the Academy Quarter, a door or two away from the tall house in which Joseph still retained his rooms. Ivan knew his way well enough; but he stood in the empty hall before the closed door for some seconds before he could bring himself to knock, so strong was his feeling of impotence, his dread of intruding into these two, alien lives. At length, stifling his thoughts, he hastily clacked the brass knocker of the door.
A moment. Then came the sound of a woman's voice, muffled, but startlingly familiar:
"C'est toi, Joseph?"
Instantly, all the blood in Ivan's body rushed to his brain. Then, fiercely seizing the door, he thrust it open, strode into the studio, and found himself face to face with Irina Petrovna.
Irina was garbed very much en negligée, but Ivan's profound amazement, (by some freak of chance the woman's name had never been mentioned to him) for a few seconds prevented his noticing that she was standing beside a trunk half filled with her own garments, more of which were scattered about the room. Looking from her dishevelled figure to the box, the significance of her evident occupation was suddenly borne in upon him.