alone, Alexei? Keep your paper to yourself!"

These words came in so strange a note, a tone so different from
Markovitch's ordinary voice, that they were, to Bohun, like a warning
blow on the shoulder.

"There's gratitude--when I'm trying to interest you! How childish, too,
not to face the real situation! Do you think you're going to improve
things by pretending that anarchy doesn't exist? So soon, too, after
your beautiful Revolution! How long is it? Let me see... March, April...
yes, just about six weeks.... Well, well!"

"Leave me alone, Alexei!... Leave me alone!"

Bohun had with that such a sense of a superhuman effort at control
behind the words that the pain of it was almost intolerable. He wanted,
there and then, to have left the room. It would have been better for him
had he done so. But some force held him in his chair, and, as the scene
developed, be felt as though his sudden departure would have laid too
emphatic a stress on the discomfort of it.

He hoped that in a moment Vera or Uncle Ivan would come and the scene
would end.

Semyonov, meanwhile, continued: "What were those words you used to me
not so long ago? Something about free Russia, I think--Russia moving
like one man to save the world--Russia with an unbroken front.... Too
optimistic, weren't you?"

The padding feet stopped. In a whisper that seemed to Bohun to fill the
room with echoing sound Markovitch said:

"You have tempted me for weeks now, Alexei.... I don't know why you hate
me so, nor why you pursue me. Go back to your own place. If I am an
unfortunate man, and by my own fault, that should be nothing to you who
are more fortunate."

"Torment you! I?... My dear Nicholas, never! But you are so childish in
your ideas--and are you unfortunate? I didn't know it. Is it about your
inventions that you are speaking? Well, they were never very happy, were
they?"

"You praised them to me!"

"Did I?... My foolish kindness of heart, I'm afraid. To tell the truth,
I was thankful when you saw things as they were..."

"You took them away from me."

"I took them away? What nonsense! It was your own wish--Vera's wish
too."

"Yes, you persuaded both Vera and Nina that they were no good. They
believed in them before you came."

"You flatter me, Nicholas. I haven't such power over Vera's opinions,
I'm afraid. If I tell her anything she believes at once the opposite.
You must have seen that yourself."

"You took her belief away from me. Y