And indeed Count Kallash could not have passed unnoticed, even among a thousand young men of his class.  Tall and vigorous, wonderfully well proportioned, he challenged comparison with Antinoues.  His pale face, tanned by the sun, had an expression almost of weariness.  His high forehead, with clustering black hair and sharply marked brows, bore the impress of passionate feeling and turbulent thought strongly repressed.  It was difficult to define the color of his deep-set, somewhat sunken eyes, which now flashed with southern fire, and were now veiled, so that one seemed to be looking into an abyss.  A slight mustache and pointed beard partly concealed the ironical smile that played on his passionate lips.  The natural grace of good manners and quiet but admirably cut clothes completed the young man’s exterior, behind which, in spite of all his reticence, could be divined a haughty and exceptional nature.  A more profound psychologist would have seen in him an obstinately passionate, ungrateful nature, which takes from others everything it desires, demanding it from them as a right and without even a nod of acknowledgment.  Such was Count Nicholas Kallash.

A few days after the reception at Prince Shadursky’s Baroness von Doering was installed in a handsome apartment on Mokhovoi Street, at which her “brother,” Ian Karozitch, or, to give him his former name, Bodlevski, was a frequent visitor.  By a “lucky accident” he had met on the day following the reception our old friend Sergei Antonovitch Kovroff, the “captain of the Golden Band.”  Their recognition was mutual, and, after a more or less faithful recital of the events of the intervening years, they had entered into an offensive and defensive alliance.

When Baroness von Doering was comfortably settled in her new quarters, Sergei Antonovitch brought a visitor to Bodlevski:  none other than the Hungarian nobleman, Count Nicholas Kallash.

“Gentlemen, you are strangers; let me introduce you to each other,” said Kovroff, presenting Count Kallash to Bodlevski.

“Very glad to know you,” answered the Hungarian count, to Bodlevski’s astonishment in Russian; “very glad, indeed!  I have several times had the honor of hearing of you.  Was it not you who had some trouble about forged notes in Paris?”

“Oh, no!  You are mistaken, dear count!” answered Bodlevski, with a pleasant smile.  “The matter was not of the slightest importance.  The amount was a trifle and I was unwilling even to appear in court!”

“You preferred a little journey to Russia, didn’t you?” Kovroff remarked with a smile.

“Little vexations of that kind may happen to anyone,” said Bodlevski, ignoring Kovroff’s interruption.  “You yourself, dear count, had some trouble about some bonds, if I am not mistaken?”

“You are mistaken,” the count interrupted him sharply.  “I have had various troubles, but I prefer not to talk about them.”

“Gentlemen,” interrupted Kovroff, “we did not come here to quarrel, but to talk business.  Our good friend, Count Kallash,” he went on, turning to Bodlevski, “wishes to have the pleasure of cooperating in our common undertaking, and—­I can recommend him very highly.”