y for fifteen kopecks... Turkish Delight, fifteen kopecks' worth.
There, grab!"

Roly-Poly neatly caught in its flight the thrown fifteen-kopeck piece;
made a comical curtsey and, pulling down the uniform cap with the green
edging at a slant over his eyes, vanished.

The tall, old Henrietta walked up to the cadets, also asked for a smoke
and, having yawned, said:

"If only you young people would dance a bit--for as it is the young
ladies sit and sit, just croaking from weariness."

"If you please, if you please!" agreed Kolya. "Play a waltz and
something else of the sort."

The musicians began to play. The girls started to whirl around with one
another, ceremoniously as usual, with stiffened backs and with eyes
modestly cast down.

Kolya Gladishev, who was very fond of dancing, could not hold out and
invited Tamara; he knew even from the previous winter that she danced
more lightly and skillfully than the rest. While he was twirling in the
waltz, the stout head-conductor, skillfully making his way between the
couples, slipped away unperceived through the drawing room. Kolya did
not have a chance to notice him.

No matter how Verka pressed Petrov, she could not, in any way, drag him
off his place. The recent light intoxication had by now gone entirely
out of his head; and more and more horrible, and unrealizable, and
monstrous did that for which he had come here seem to him. He might
have gone away, saying that not a one here pleased him; have put the
blame on a headache, or something; but he knew that Gladishev would not
let him go; and mainly--it seemed unbearably hard to get up from his
place and to walk a few steps by himself. And, besides that, he felt
that he had not the strength to start talking of this with Kolya.

They finished dancing. Tamara and Gladishev again sat down side by side.

"Well, really, how is it that Jennechka isn't coming by now?" asked
Kolya impatiently.

Tamara quickly gave Verka a look with a question, incomprehensible to
the uninitiated, in her eyes. Verka quickly lowered her eyelashes. This
signified: yes, he is gone.

"I'll go right away and call her," said Tamara.

"But what are you so stuck on your Jennka for," said Henrietta. "You
might take me."

"All right, another time," answered Kolya and nervously began to smoke.

Jennka was not even beginning to dress yet. She was sitting before the
mirror and powdering her face.

"What is it, Tamarochka?" she asked.

"Your li