his son and Malva.
Henceforward, he thought, his life would be less agreeable, less free.
Iakov had surely guessed what Malva was.

Meanwhile Malva, in the cabin, was trying to arouse the rustic with her
bold eyes.

"Perhaps you left a girl in the village?" she asked suddenly.

"Perhaps," he responded surlily.

Inwardly he was abusing Malva.

"Is she pretty?" she asked with indifference.

Iakov made no reply.

"Why don't you answer? Is she better looking than I, or no?"

He looked at her in spite of himself. Her cheeks were sunburnt and
plump, her lips red and tempting and now, parted in a malicious smile,
showing the white even teeth, they seemed to tremble. Her bust was full
and firm under a pink cotton waist that set off to advantage her trim
waist and well-rounded arms. But he did not like her green and cynical
eyes.

"Why do you talk like that?" he asked.

He sighed without reason and spoke in a beseeching tone, yet he wanted
to speak brutally to her.

"How shall I talk?" she asked laughing.

"There you are, laughing--at what?"

"At you--."

"What have I done to you?" he said with irritation. And once more he
lowered his eyes under her gaze.

She made no reply.

Iakov understood her relations towards his father perfectly well and
that prevented him from expressing himself freely. He was not
surprised. It would have been difficult for a man like his father to
have been long without a companion.

"The soup is ready," announced Vassili, at the threshold of the cabin.
"Get the spoons, Malva."

When she found the spoons she said she must go down to the sea to wash
them.

The father and son watched her as she ran down the sands and both were
silent.

"Where did you meet her?" asked Vassili, finally.

"I went to get news of you at the office. She was there. She said to
me: 'Why go on foot along the sand? Come in the boat. I'm going
there.' And so we started."

"And--what do you think of her?"

"Not bad," said Iakov, vaguely, blinking his eyes.

"What could I do?" asked Vassili. "I tried at first. But it was
impossible. She mends my clothes and so on. Besides it's as easy to
escape from death as from a woman when once she's after you."

"What's it to me?" said Iakov. "It's your affair. I'm not your judge."

Malva now returned with the spoons, and they sat down to dinner. They
ate without talking, sucking the bones noisily and spitting them out on
the sand, near the do