inner they went into the study.
They talked about the decadents, about "The Maid of Orleans," and
Kostya delivered a regular monologue; he fancied that he was very
successful in imitating Ermolova. Then they sat down and played
whist. The little girls had not gone back to the lodge but were
sitting together in one arm-chair, with pale and mournful faces,
and were listening to every noise in the street, wondering whether
it was their father coming. In the evening when it was dark and the
candles were lighted, they felt deeply dejected. The talk over the
whist, the footsteps of Pyotr, the crackling in the fireplace,
jarred on their nerves, and they did not like to look at the fire.
In the evenings they did not want to cry, but they felt strange,
and there was a load on their hearts. They could not understand how
people could talk and laugh when their mother was dead.

"What did you see through the field-glasses today?" Yulia Sergeyevna
asked Kostya.

"Nothing to-day, but yesterday I saw the old Frenchman having his
bath."

At seven o'clock Yulia and Kostya went to the Little Theatre. Laptev
was left with the little girls.

"It's time your father was here," he said, looking at his watch.
"The train must be late."

The children sat in their arm-chair dumb and huddling together like
animals when they are cold, while he walked about the room looking
impatiently at his watch. It was quiet in the house. But just before
nine o'clock some one rang at the bell. Pyotr went to open the door.

Hearing a familiar voice, the children shrieked, burst into sobs,
and ran into the hall. Panaurov was wearing a sumptuous coat of
antelope skin, and his head and moustaches were white with hoar
frost. "In a minute, in a minute," he muttered, while Sasha and
Lida, sobbing and laughing, kissed his cold hands, his hat, his
antelope coat. With the languor of a handsome man spoilt by too
much love, he fondled the children without haste, then went into
the study and said, rubbing his hands:

"I've not come to stay long, my friends. I'm going to Petersburg
to-morrow. They've promised to transfer me to another town."

He was staying at the Dresden Hotel.

X

A friend who was often at the Laptevs' was Ivan Gavrilitch Yartsev.
He was a strong, healthy man with black hair and a clever, pleasant
face. He was considered to be handsome, but of late he had begun
to grow stout, and that rather spoilt his face and figure; another
thing that spoil