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her warm-up. She ran from the rehearsal room, aware that the bell was about to ring and that she must not be caught out of bed. She reached the dormitory in time, and slipped noiselessly onto her cot. A shiver of pleasure raced through her, and her skin tingled from the exercise. She closed her eyes. She envisioned the Mariinsky and herself in her Sugar Plum costume. And then, abruptly, she remembered the elegant blond man with the ironic smile whom she had encountered in the corridor the day of the rehearsal. What an odd expression on that princely face. “I don’t like him,” she murmured, not realizing that she had spoken out loud.
    â€œWho’s that?” Katya demanded from the neighboring bed.
    â€œA living statue with a top hat and scented hair,” Natalia replied.
    Katya began to laugh.

    T he palace of Count Vassily Arkadievitch Kussov stood on the French Quay among the embassies, a cream-colored structure of simple, flowing lines that always pleased Boris whenever he came up to its enormous oak door. His father had neither chosen nor furnished it; he was a sturdy, uncomplicated man, happiest in his summer residence near the town of Dunaburg, on the train line to Berlin. There he possessed a vast stretch of fertile land around a lake, shaded by pleasant Mount Cavallo, where he liked to hunt in the company of other hardy men like himself. His palace in the capital had been selected by his own father, Count Arkady Kussov, a man whose delicate tastes had skipped a generation and resurfaced in Boris. Count Vassily’s wife, long-deceased, had added many treasures from France, Italy, and the Orient to the original furnishings. Boris resembled his exquisite late mother in looks and temperament, and his father’s father in the eclectic nature of his interests.
    The liveried Swiss doorman bowed and opened the doors for Boris, whose cloak of black seal was instantly removed by a discreet maître d’hôtel. “Ismy father waiting?” Boris asked pleasantly.
    â€œYes, Excellency. In his study.”
    Boris nodded and rubbed his hands together to dispel the ungodly chill of a Russian winter. When the servant had departed, he stood hesitantly in the hallway, then could not resist the temptation to take a quick look around the salon. He fingered a sculpted lamp base of opaline, representing a Chinese woman with stiff headdress, and gazed lovingly at a small boulle secretary. He straightened his back and consulted the gold watch in his waistcoat pocket. He stepped away from the salon into a corridor illumined by a chandelier of shimmering Venetian crystal, and stopped by a door which was ajar. Crackling sounds of a fire reached his ears from inside the room. He knocked, paused, and said: “Papa?”
    â€œBorya!” Now the younger man strode joyously across an Aubusson carpet of soft pastel hues. In front of a large mahogany desk stood a portly gentleman with hazel eyes beneath bushy brows, red bristles gleaming through darker sprouts. His fleshy nose curved toward a magnificent walrus mustache—in fact, he actually resembled a well-fed, elderly walrus still fighting to retain a grip on his prime. There was little gray mingling with the brown and red of his hair, and his paunch was hard, as if possessing an entity of its own. This was Vassily Kussov, whose intimate friendship with Tzar Alexander III had made him a familiar at the court of this now-deceased sovereign.
    Boris embraced his father, and the two men sat down by the fire. “I hear much of your activities,” the older man commented, drawing on a briar pipe. “You and your artistic friends. When I do not see you, I can always rely on Grand Duke Vladimir to keep me apprised of all your doings. Not all, actually: only those with which he is acquainted as president of the Academy of Fine Arts.”
    â€œCome now, Papa, you sound as though I have been neglecting you,” Boris chided gently.
    â€œYou