An expression of restrained inward contempt played over her face. She
raised her eyebrows in scorn and pity when she looked at or spoke
to Mariana, and she would fix her wonderful eyes, full of tender
remonstrance and painful disgust, on the willful girl, who, after all
her "fancies and eccentricities," had ended by kissing an insignificant
undergraduate... in a dark room!

Poor Mariana! Her severe, proud lips had never tasted any man's kisses.

Valentina Mihailovna had not told her husband of the discovery she had
made. She merely contented herself by addressing a few words to Mariana
in his presence, accompanied by a significant smile, quite irrelevant to
the occasion. She regretted having written to her brother, but was,
on the whole, more pleased that the thing was done than be spared the
regret and the letter not written.

Nejdanov got a glimpse of Mariana at lunch in the dining-room. It seemed
to him that she had grown thinner and paler. She was not looking her
best on that day, but the penetrating glance she turned on him directly
he entered the room went straight to his heart. Valentina Mihailovna
looked at him constantly, as though she were inwardly congratulating
him. "Splendid! Very smart!" he read on her face, while she was studying
his to find out if Markelov had shown him the letter. She decided in the
end that he had.

On hearing that Nejdanov had been to the factory of which Solomin was
the manager, Sipiagin began asking him various questions about it, but
was soon convinced from the young man's replies that he had seen nothing
there and dropped into a majestic silence, as if reproaching himself
for having expected any practical knowledge from such an inexperienced
individual! On going out of the room Mariana managed to whisper to
Nejdanov: "Wait for me in the birch grove at the end of the garden. I'll
be there as soon as possible."

"She is just as familiar with me as Markelov was," he thought to
himself, and a strange, pleasant sensation came over him. How strange it
would have seemed to him if she had suddenly become distant and formal
again, if she had turned away from him. He felt that such a thing would
have made him utterly wretched, but was not sure in his own mind whether
he loved her or not. She was dear to him and he felt the need of her
above everything--this he acknowledged from the bottom of his heart.

The grove Mariana mentioned consisted of some hundreds of big old
weeping-birches