d waited.
She herself, I expect, prevented their being alone. She was waiting for
something to happen. Then Nina's flight overwhelmed everything. That
must have been the most awful thing. She never liked Grogoff, never
trusted him, and had a very clear idea of his character. But more awful
to her than his weakness was her knowledge that Nina did not love him.
What could have driven her to do such a thing? She knew of her affection
for Lawrence, but she had, perhaps, never taken that seriously. How
could Nina really love Lawrence when he, so obviously, cared nothing at
all for her? She reasoned then, as every one always does, on the lines
of her own character. She herself could never have cared seriously for
any one had there been no return. Her pride would not have allowed
her....

But Nina had been the charge of her life. Before Nicholas, before her
own life, before everything. Nina was her duty, her sacred cause--and
now she was betraying her trust! Something must be done--but what? but
what? She knew Nina well enough to realise that a false step would only
plunge her farther than ever into the business. It must have seemed to
her indeed that because of her own initial disloyalty the whole world
was falling away from her.

Then there came Semyonov; I did not at this time at all sufficiently
realise that her hatred of her uncle--for it _was_ hatred, more, much
more than mere dislike--had been with her all her life. Many months
afterwards she told me that she could never remember a time when she had
not hated him. He had teased her when she was a very little girl,
laughing at her naive honesty, throwing doubts on her independence,
cynically ridiculing her loyalty. There had been one horrible winter
month (then ten or eleven years of age) when she had been sent to stay
with him in Moscow.

He had a fine house near the Arbat, and he was living (although she did
not of course know anything about that at the time) with one of his
gaudiest mistresses. Her mother and father being dead she had no
protection. She was defenceless. I don't think that he in any way
perverted her innocence. I except that he was especially careful to
shield her from his own manner of life (he had always his own queer
tradition of honour which he effected indeed to despise), but she felt
more than she perceived. The house was garish, over-scented and
over-lighted. There were many gilt chairs and large pictures of naked
women and numbers of colour