Dessert was approaching, heralded by turreted confections, reminding one involuntarily of the glorious ice palace that every winter is built on the Neva; by pyramids of sweet cakes and transparent edifices of jelly which it took two men to carry. According to Russian fashion, the fruit and bonbons and minor toothsomenesses had had their place on the cloth from the beginning of dinner, cincturing with their appetizing battalions the masses of flowers and feathery foliage forming the center and wings of that opulent display. Lucullus dining with Lucullus could have devised nothing more truly complete. “You are bored, madame? You think our _agapes_ too ostentatious?” The question was asked by Laurence’s left-hand neighbor, whom it must be admitted she, in her fault-finding and sulky mood, had absolutely neglected, as she had also her right-hand one, who, by the way, was a corpulent Chouróff, more interested in his plate than in pretty women. To be sure, when the general presentations had been gone through she had not heard either name, and, as if perversely inclined, the little dinner-cards inscribed with them had lain prone on their faces between her cover and theirs. Yet the speaker was not a man to be easily overlooked. Tall, slender, without being in the least thin, he had the most interesting face imaginable: a delicately aquiline face, barred by a long, slender mustache inclining to a light frost of grayness, which was repeated in his thick, short-cut hair. Deep under well-marked brows were what could well have been called, after the fashion of lady-novelists, “eagle’s eyes,” so penetrating were they, and he wore his dress-coat like a hauberk--a soldier every inch of him, if out of uniform--a Grand Seigneur of olden times in modern mufti. “Not precisely bored,” drawled Laurence, turning languidly toward him. “But a little surprised at what I see. Surely, monsieur, you are not a Russian?” “I am not, madame, and sometimes I regret it, for they are a great people over here.” “Think so?” “Yes, madame, I do, from the bottom of my heart, else I would not have married my wife.” The taunt did not pierce Laurence’s thick vanity and self-righteousness. “You are wedded to a Russian?” she asked _du bout des lèvres_. “I am afraid you did not catch my name a while ago, madame. As a matter of fact, I have the honor of being closely related to you--by marriage. I am Salvières.” “_The_ Duke!” Laurence exclaimed, with sudden attention, and with the same animation she had displayed when the “Gamin” had mentioned Salvières to her at Plenhöel; for he was a very great personage indeed, even to Laurence’s colossal ignorance of the intimate lining of affairs, both social and diplomatic.