It was of Olga he thought as he wondered with idle curiosity which might be her casement among those that glittered and gleamed like jewels in a crystal setting, across the great marble front of the Winter Palace. If he waited long enough would he see the blind raised, the silken hangings withdrawn, and the face of his lady-love look forth to greet the day? Then would he, standing below her, bare his fair head and veil his bold blue eyes, and pray the passing wind to carry to her his message of fealty and true love.
But the windows remained hermetically sealed, the curtains undrawn, and presently Ivor with a shrug of his shoulders, a laugh at his sentimentality, and the fragment of song once more on his lips, passed on his way, looking neither to the right nor the left, and vanished within the heavy portals of the Imperial Chancellerie.
Mounting one flight of stairs with quick step, and passing along a short corridor, Ivor knocked at a closed door, and hearing the sharp French "_entrez_," opened it and stepped within that inner chamber where so few weeks ago Vladimir Mellikoff had weighed his chances, and made his choice.
Patouchki sat, as then, at the table writing; and without raising his eyes from his occupation, bade the young secretary good-morning, signing him to his place by a gesture of his left hand.
Ivor obeyed at once, and for some time only the rapid passing to and fro of the quill pens upon the paper were the only sounds.
Ivor Tolskoi had removed his heavy outside wraps and thus revealed the fact that he still wore evening-dress, and that a white rose-bud lingered in his button-hole, its freshness somewhat tarnished, but its perfume as sweet as ever.
After about half an hour's silence, Patouchki pushed back his chair and laid down his pen, passing his hand rapidly across his forehead once or twice, and looking keenly at his young companion as he did so. In the cruelly frank and searching morning light the face seemed to lose something of its pristine youth; the faint lines about the eyes and mouth became accentuated, the pallor of the temples more noticeable, the cruelty of lips and chin more pronounced. He did not look up however, though aware of the chief's scrutiny, until Patouchki's harsh voice and bullet-like sentences broke the silence.