d
saved with me for each one of you every month; and will be put away in
your name in a banker's office, where there will increase interest upon
them, and interest upon interest. And then, if a girl feels herself
tired, or wants to marry a respectable man, there will always be at her
disposal not a large, but a sure capital. So is it done in the best
establishments in Riga, and everywhere abroad. Let no one say about me,
that Emma Edwardovna is a spider, a vixen, a cupping glass. But for
disobedience, for laziness, for notions, for lovers on the side, I will
punish cruelly and, like nasty weeds, will throw out--on the street, or
still worse. Now I have said all that I had to. Nina, come near me. And
all the rest of you come up in turn."

Ninka irresolutely walked right up to Emma Edwardovna--and even
staggered back in amazement: Emma Edwardovna was extending her right
hand to her, with the fingers lowered downward, and slowly nearing it
to Ninka's lips.

"Kiss it! ..." impressively and firmly pronounced Emma Edwardovna,
narrowing her eyes and with head thrown back, in the magnificent pose
of a princess ascending her throne.

Ninka was so bewildered that her right arm gave a jerk in order to make
the sign of the cross; but she corrected herself, loudly smacked the
extended hand, and stepped aside. Following her Zoe, Henrietta, Vanda
and others stepped up also. Tamara alone continued to stand near the
wall with her back to the mirror; that mirror into which Jennka so
loved to gaze, in gone-by times, admiring herself as she walked back
and forth through the drawing room.

Emma Edwardovna let the imperious, obstinate gaze of a boa-constrictor
rest upon her; but the hypnosis did not work. Tamara bore this gaze
without turning away, without flinching; but without any expression on
her face. Then the new proprietress put down her hand, produced on her
face something resembling a smile, and said hoarsely:

"And with you, Tamara, I must have a little talk separately, eye to
eye. Let's go!"

"I hear you, Emma Edwardovna!" calmly answered Tamara.

Emma Edwardovna came to the little bit of a cabinet, where formerly
Anna Markovna loved to drink coffee with clotted cream; sat down on the
divan and pointed out a place opposite her to Tamara. For some time the
women kept silent; searchingly, mistrustfully eyeing each other.

"You acted rightly, Tamara," said Emma Edwardovna finally. "You did
wisely in not stepping up, on the