"'I can answer no such question,' he said; 'my master desires to remain _incog._ at present. My name is Orloff, and I wish you to answer one inquiry: Does the ward of the Countess Walewski have an interview with Admiral Praxin to-day?' "'She does.' "'That is sufficient; you will hear from me soon,' and Orloff fled through the open door, with a speed truly marvelous. "Nicholas called after him in vain, and then called his servant to dress him, with a vague apprehension of evil, and a belief that no lover ever had so many to assist his wooing as himself. * * * * * "Olinska, the daughter of a noble Polish family, was deprived of her parents at an early age, and selected for her guardian the high-minded Countess Walewski. Her childish years were spent in Warsaw, the city of her forefathers; but the Countess was obliged to remain at St. Petersburg, being a member of the Czarina's household, and thither she called her ward, to be presented at court, and drown the memory of her sorrows in the gaieties of the capital. "Young, beautiful and unsophisticated, chaperoned by an illustrious lady, and reputed to be heiress of great wealth, the Polish maiden speedily became the magnet and toast of a brilliant circle, and a prize for which scores of young nobles contended. But the heart of Olinska was not to be purchased with titles, and while the scions of aristocracy knelt vainly at her feet, she bestowed her virgin affections upon Dimitri, whose silent homage defeated that of all others, with its proud, peculiar dignity. Military rank is esteemed by the Russians as little inferior to that of inheritance; yet they acknowledge a difference, and the line drawn between them by the usages of society cannot be overstepped with impunity. The young officer, although admitted into court circles, was aware of the distance between himself and the lady in a social sense; but the encouragement she gave him, so insensibly drew them together, that disparity of birth was forgotten, and love--the great leveller of conditions--reigned paramount. "However misanthropically a man may express his indifference to the world's opinion, we are all, more or less, its most subservient slaves, and although Nicholas Dimitri assured his idol that the gossip of fashionables was nothing to him, he deemed it proper to solicit the kind offices of the Countess, as a go-between; and apparently visited the guardian, when, in reality, the fair ward was the object of his intentions.