The old man had brought the flat of his hand down upon the table. “See here, Henry--forget your grouch--look me straight in the eye. That’s right. Now, down in the bottom of your heart, don’t you know that you’ve got the biggest business chance of any young fellow in America?” The keen young gray eyes looked steadily into the keen old gray eyes. “I do,” he admitted. “And is there anything you’d like better than to control great industries--to make millions on millions--to know that though you don’t live in Washington you’ve got as big a say-so in running things as any man that does?” The young man’s face had glowed, his voice had rung with perfect confidence. “I’m going to be all that, uncle. I feel it in me! It’s the dream of my life!” And it was about this great future that Drexel’s thoughts revolved as his train roared onward across the snow. His ironic duty was all but done. For three months he had grimly played his part, and now in two weeks Alice would be Princess Berloff. Originally the marriage was to have taken place in Chicago, but the disturbed state of affairs would not permit the prince to leave his country, so it had been decided that the wedding should be in St. Petersburg--and Mr. Howard, set free by a business lull, was now lunging through wintry seas to be present at the ceremony. Two more weeks, and Drexel and his uncle would be speeding back to Chicago--back to giant affairs. But some of his business thoughts centred here in Russia; for, after all, his banishment from business promised to be a fortunate misfortune. Drexel had not been in Russia two days before he had seen the tremendous opportunities the future would offer capital in this the most undeveloped of civilized countries. He had begun to project great schemes--schemes to be inaugurated years hence, when the success of the Czar or the revolutionists had given the country that stability necessary for business enterprise. And it was characteristic of his energy, and of the way he prepared for distant eventualities, that he had applied himself to the study of the Russian tongue the better to fit himself for these dim-seen Russian successes. At Bolgoîé his meditations were interrupted by the pause of the express for lunch. The platform was crowded with soldiers and gendarmes, and standing about in attitudes of exaggerated indifference were men whose furtive watchfulness betrayed them as spies of an inferior grade. At Drexel’s table in the station dining-room sat several officers of the gendarmerie, to whom he mechanically listened. They were discussing the greatest of the Government’s recent triumphs--the arrest a week before of Borodin, one of the chief revolutionary leaders, who immediately following his seizure had been secretly whisked away, no one knew whither save only the head of the spy system and a few other high officials. In what prison the great leader was held was a question all Russia was then asking.