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When Potemkin felt himself quite alone, he leaned back in his arm-chair with an ugly frown. "Something is going on to my disadvantage here," muttered he. "I saw it yesterday in Panin's exulting countenance.. How I hate that man! Almost as much as I do Orloff! It is a blessing for me that both are not here to plot together.

"What an infernal plot! But it bears the stamp of Panin's treachery upon its face," muttered Potemkin, while with hasty strides he walked up and down the room. Cobenzl watched him with a half smile, and taking up the ribbon of the Black Eagle, he passed it through his hands by way of pastime. After much going to and fro, Potemkin stopped, and his countenance was expressive of courage and resolve.

I know that the matter was thoroughly discussed yesterday between Count Panin and the Prussian ambassador." "The Prussian ambassador was yesterday in conference with Panin?" "Not only yesterday, but to-day, I met him coming from Panin's with his order of the Black Eagle, and a letter for your highness from the king." "Truly your spies are great detectives," cried Potemkin.

Panin's salutation was that of a serf who is accustomed to kiss the dust from his tyrant's feet; Von Gortz, on the contrary, had the bearing of a man of the world, accustomed to concede homage and to exact it. "Well, count," said the empress, graciously, "what pleasant news do you bring from Sans-Souci? Has your accomplished sovereign recovered from his indisposition?"

A stout British squadron sent to the Baltic in 1780 would have wonderfully solved the difficulties of the British negotiation, have completely cleared the empress's conscience, have enlightened Count Panin's brains, and have convinced even the wily Potemkin himself that the art of political delusion was too dangerous a game to be tried against England.