k in Nikolai's face
which made him feel justified in restraining himself. This pertinacious,
silent working man looked as though he could strike.

The door continued to open and shut as incessantly as before, and both
the constable and the ticket collector had become in a measure
reconciled to the man who stood there so persistently--it almost looked
as if he had a lawful business there, with that bundle in his hand--when
Nikolai suddenly put his smith's shoulder to the door and pressed
violently against it.

The ticket collector resisted in vain with his body; his hands were
occupied.

Through the opening Nikolai had seen Silla, red, laughing, and out of
breath with dancing, coming down the room with Ludvig Veyergang; he was
looking about short-sightedly, with his hat pressed down sideways over
his forehead and his eye-glass in one eye, with light arrogance, as if
he were only going about his lawful business, when he was ruining a
young girl.

There was a noise and disturbance down at the door.

"Turn him out! Turn him out!"

At last the cry sounded over the whole room. It was an interlude, during
which the audience climbed up on to tables and benches to try to see.

Nikolai would blindly and roughly have forced his way in, had not the
police officer met him at the door, and with his own and the constable's
united efforts managed to drag the strong, unruly smith out.

His one thought, while with a certain cool, temperate leniency they
dragged him out into the half-darkness, was to keep so near that he
could have an eye on the door. He felt with suppressed rage that if they
drove him to it, he would sooner die than leave the garden now.

The music ceased. A number of people, hot and breathless, streamed out
during a pause in the dancing.

There came Veyergang--and Silla, bashful and half-resisting, with him.
They took the way up to the restaurant.

Nikolai suddenly disengaged himself with a jerk, and the next moment,
emerging from the darkness, thrust himself between them.

Silla uttered a cry of terror, but Nikolai only gave her a half-glance,
and flung her behind him--and thus stood face to face with Veyergang.

The young lion changed colour and retreated a step before the expression
of violent hatred confronting him; but, recognising the old enemy of his
school days, he curled his lip scornfully.

_That_ look made Nikolai rush upon him, and Veyergang, with a cry of
"You cowardly ruffian!" returned th