'You are very good. I had better go away at once. I should wish to be away before the others return.'
'But where will you go?' said the old man, staring at him with a dull and troubled surprise.
The boy shrugged his shoulders.
'The world is large—at least it looks so when one has not been over it. Can you tell me who inherits from Prince Paul Zabaroff?'
'His eldest son by his marriage with a Princess Kourouassine. If he had only left some will, some sort of command or direction—perhaps if I wrote to the Princess, and told her the facts, she—'
'Pray do not do that,' said the boy coldly. 'I thank you for all I have learned here, and I will leave your house to-night. Farewell to you, sir.'
The boy's eyes were dry and calm; the old man's were wet and dim. He rose hurriedly, and laid aside his stern habit of authority for a moment, as he put his hand on the lad's shoulder.
'Vassia, do not leave us like that. I do not like to see you so cold, so quiet, so unnaturally indifferent. You are left friendless and nameless—and after all he was your father.'
The boy drew himself away gently, and shrugged his shoulders once more with his slight gesture of contempt.
'He never called me his son. I wish he had left me by the Volga with the bear-cubs: that is all. Adieu, sir.'