"Charming indeed; but how does that help matters for me? I can't marry her till I am of age and wear rosettes on my epaulets; and that won't be for two years yet. A man can't live all that time on a pair of beautiful eyes. Come with me." The other hesitated. "I am not sure whether we ought to run away so early," said he. "But don't you hear the bands playing the national hymns?" asked his companion. "Besides, we can slip out through the rear door; a sleigh is waiting for me there with my furs. Surely you haven't any more engagements with the wax dolls here?" "Yes, I have," was the reply; "I am down for a quadrille with the Princess N----, to whom I was just now presented." "Oh, I beg you, have nothing to do with her," urged the young officer. "She will only make sport of you, as she does of all the others. Come with me." "Whither do you wish to take me?" "To the infernal regions. Are you afraid to follow?" "Not at all." "Will you come with me to paradise, too, if I ask you?" "With all my heart." "And if I invite you to a stuffy little inn on Kamennoi Island, where the sailors are having a dance, will you come?" "Yes, anywhere you please; it's all one to me." "Good! That's what I like." And Leonin embraced his friend, after which he led him forth from the marble palace by passages known to himself. Once in the open air, they ran in their light ball-room costumes to the bank of the Neva, where a sleigh awaited their coming, wrapped themselves in warm furs, and in a moment were speeding across the ice behind two fleet horses, to the silvery music of tinkling bells. These two young men were the Russian noble, Leonin Ramiroff, and Ödön, eldest son of the house of Baradlay. As the sleigh glided along the moonlit row of palaces, Ödön remarked to his companion that they were not going in the direction of Kamennoi Island. "Nor do we wish to," returned Leonin. "Why, then, did you say we were going thither?" "So that no one should by any possibility overhear our real destination." "And what, pray, may that be?" "You can see for yourself: we are on the Petrofski Prospect, headed straight for Petrofski Island." "But there's nothing there except hemp factories and sugar refineries." "You are right; and we are going to call on a sugar-boiler." "I have no objection," returned Ödön, wrapping his mantle more closely about him, and leaning back in his seat. Possibly he even went to sleep. Half an hour later the sleigh crossed the Neva again, and drew up before a red building at the end of a long park. Leonin aroused his companion. "Here we are," said he. All the windows of the long factory were lighted up, and as the two young men entered, they were greeted by that unsavoury odour peculiar to sugar refineries, and suggestive of anything but sugar. A smooth-faced man of sleek appearance advanced to meet them, and asked them in French what they wished. "To see the sugar works," answered Leonin.