found herself sitting in the window talking to him. This
conversation, which was in its results to have an important influence on
her whole life, continued the development which that eventful Sunday was
to effect in her. Its importance lay very largely in the fact that her
uncle had never spoken to her seriously like a grown-up woman before.
Semyonov was, of course, quite clever enough to realise the change which
was transforming her, and he seized it, at once, for his own advantage.
She, on her side, had always, ever since she could remember, been
intrigued by him. She told me once that almost her earliest memory was
being lifted into the air by her uncle and feeling the thick solid
strength of his grasp, so that she was like a feather in the air, poised
on one of his stubborn fingers; when he kissed her each hair of his
beard seemed like a pale, taut wire, so stiff and resolute was it. Her
Uncle Ivan was a flabby, effeminate creature in comparison. Then, as she
had grown older, she had realised that he was a dangerous man, dangerous
to women, who loved and feared and hated him. Vera said that he had
great power over them and made them miserable, and that he was,
therefore, a bad, wicked man. But this only served to make him, in
Nina's eyes, the more a romantic figure.

However, he had never treated her in the least seriously, had tossed her
in the air spiritually just as he had done physically when she was a
baby, had given her chocolates, taken her once or twice to the cinema,
laughed at her, and, she felt, deeply despised her. Then came the war
and he had gone to the Front, and she had almost forgotten him. Then
came the romantic story of his being deeply in love with a nurse who had
been killed, that he was heartbroken and inconsolable and a changed man.
Was it wonderful that on his return to Petrograd she should feel again
that old Byronic (every Russian is still brought up on Byron) romance?
She did not like him, but--well--Vera was a staid old-fashioned
thing.... Perhaps they all misjudged him; perhaps he really needed
comfort and consolation. He certainly seemed kinder than he used to be.
But, until to-day, he had never talked to her seriously.

How her heart leapt into her throat when he began, at once, in his quiet
soft voice,

"Well, Nina dear, tell me all about it. I know, so you needn't be
frightened. I know and I understand."

She flung a terrified glance around her, but Uncle Ivan was reading the
pap