orward to me very amiably,
holding out his hand.

"Nu, Ivan Andreievitch.... What can I do for you?" he asked, smiling.

And how he had changed! He was positively swollen with
self-satisfaction. He had never been famous for personal modesty, but he
seemed now to be physically twice his normal size. He was fat, his
cheeks puffed, his stomach swelling beneath the belt that bound it. His
fair hair was long, and rolled in large curls on one side of his head
and over his forehead. He spoke in a loud, overbearing voice.

"Nu, Ivan Andreievitch, what can I do for you?" he repeated.

"Can I see Nina?" I asked.

"Nina?..." he repeated as though surprised. "Certainly--but what do you
want to say to her?"

"I don't see that that's your business," I answered. "I have a message
for her from her family."

"But of course it's my business," he answered. "I'm looking after her
now."

"Since when?" I asked.

"What does that matter?... She is going to live with me."

"We'll see about that," I said.

I knew that it was foolish to take this kind of tone. It could do no
good, and I was not the sort of man to carry it through.

But he was not at all annoyed.

"See, Ivan Andreievitch," he said, smiling. "What is there to discuss?
Nina and I have long considered living together. She is a grown-up
woman. It's no one's affair but her own."

"Are you going to marry her?" I asked.

"Certainly not," he answered; "that would not suit either of us. It's
no good your bringing your English ideas here, Ivan Andreievitch. We
belong to the new world, Nina and I."

"Well, I want to speak to her," I answered.

"So you shall, certainly. But if you hope to influence her at all you
are wasting your time, I assure you. Nina has acted very rightly. She
found the home life impossible. I'm sure I don't wonder. She will assist
me in my work. The most important work, perhaps, that man has ever been
called on to perform...."

He raised his voice here as though he were going to begin a speech. But
at that moment Nina came in. She stood in the doorway looking across at
me with a childish mixture of hesitation and boldness, of anger and
goodwill in her face. Her cheeks were pale, her eyes heavy. Her hair was
done in two long plaits. She looked about fourteen.

She came up to me, but she didn't offer me her hand. Boris said:

"Nina dear, Ivan Andreievitch has come to give you a message from your
family." There was a note of scorn in his voice as