Harietta arrived punctually. She had made herself extremely beautiful. Her overmastering desire to see Verisschenzko had allowed her usually keen sense of self-preservation partially to sleep. But even so, underneath there was some undefined sense of uneasiness. Stepan met her in the hall, and greeted her in his usual abrupt way without ceremony. "You will leave your cloak in my room," he suggested, wishing to give her the chance to look at the Ikon's jammed doors and so put her at her ease. The moment she found herself alone, she went swiftly to the shrine. She examined it closely--no the bolt had not been mended. She pulled at the doors but she could not open them, and she remembered with relief that she had slammed them hard. That would account for things. He certainly could not yet know of her action. The evening would be one of pleasure after all! And there was never any use in speculating about to-morrows! Verisschenzko was waiting for her in the sitting-room, and they went straight in to dinner. A little table was drawn up to the fire; all appeared deliciously intimate, and Harietta's spirits rose. To her Verisschenzko appeared the most attractive creature on earth. Indeed, he had a wonderful magnetism which had intoxicated many women before her day. He was looking at her now with eyes unclouded by glamour. He saw that she was painted and obvious, and without real charm. She could no longer even affect his senses. He saw nothing but the reality, the animal, blatant reality, and in his memory there remained the pierced out orbs of the Virgin and the scratched face of the Christ child. Everything fierce and cunning in his nature was in action--he was glorying in the torture he meant to inflict, the torture of jealousy and unsatisfied suspicion. He talked subtly, deliberately stirring her curiosity and arousing her apprehension. He had not mentioned Amaryllis, and yet he had conveyed to her, as though it were an unconscious admission, that he had been in England with her, and that she reigned in his soul. Then he used every one of his arts of fascination so that all Harietta's desires were inflamed once more, and by the time she had eaten of the rich Russian dishes and drank of the Chateau Ykem she was experiencing the strongest emotion she had ever known in her life, while a sense of impotence to move him augmented her other feelings. Her eyes swam with passion, as she leaned over the table whispering words of the most violent love in his ears. Verisschenzko remained absolutely unstirred. "How silly you were to send that postcard to Lady Ardayre," he remarked contemplatively in the middle of one of her burning sentences. "It was not worthy of your usual methods--a child could see that it was a forgery. If you had not done that I might have made you very happy to-night--for the last time--my little goat!"