greater thing than the possessors of it know.

Through all the little quarrels and disputes of our company there ran
the thread of the affair of Trenchard, Marie Ivanovna and Semyonov.
Trenchard was lighted now with the pleasure of their affection, and
Marie Ivanovna, who had been at first so popular amongst them, was
held to be hard and capricious. She, at least, did not make it easy
for them to like her. She had seemed in those first days in O---- as
though she wished to win all their hearts, but now it was as though
she had not time to consider any of us, as though she had something of
far greater importance to claim her attention. She was now very
continually with Semyonov and yet it seemed to me that it was rather
respect for his opinion and admiration of his independence than liking
that compelled her. He was, beyond any question, in love with her, if
the name of love can be given to the fierce, intolerant passion that
governed him.

He made no attempt to disguise his feelings, was as rude to the rest
of us as he pleased, and, of course, flung his scorn plentifully over
Trenchard. But now I seemed to detect in him some shades of
restlessness and anxiety that I had never seen in him before. He was
not sure of her; he did not, I believe, understand her any more than
did the rest of us. With justice, indeed, I was afraid for her. His
passion, I thought, was as surely and as nakedly a physical one as any
other that I had seen precede it, and would as certainly pass as all
purely physical passions do. She was as ignorant of the world as on
the day when she arrived amongst us; but my feeling about her was that
she would receive his love almost as though in a dream, her thoughts
fixed on something far from him and in no way depending on him. At any
rate she was with him now continually. We judged her proud and
hard-hearted, all of us except Trenchard who loved her, Semyonov who
wanted her, and Nikitin, who, as I now believe, even then understood
her.

Trenchard meanwhile was confused and unsettled: inaction did not suit
him any better than it did the rest of us. He had too much time to
think about Marie Ivanovna.

He was undoubtedly pleased at his new popularity. He expanded under it
and became something of the loquacious and uncalculating person that
he had shown himself during his confession to me in the train. To the
Russians his loquacity was in no way strange or unpleasant. They were
in the habit of unburdening