most awful things, and what do you think? He has
been talking to your husband for a whole hour, and not once, not once,
did he address him as Your Excellency! Le vagabond!"

XXIV

JUST before dinner Sipiagin called his wife into the library. He wanted
to have a talk with her alone. He seemed worried. He told her that the
factory was really in a bad way, that Solomin struck him as a capable
man, although a little stiff, and thought it was necessary to continue
being aux petits soins with him.

"How I should like to get hold of him!" he repeated once or twice.
Sipiagin was very much annoyed at Kollomietzev's being there. "Devil
take the man! He sees nihilists everywhere and is always wanting to
suppress them! Let him do it at his own house I He simply can't hold his
tongue!"

Valentina Mihailovna said that she would be delighted to be aux petits
soins with the new visitor, but it seemed to her that he had no need of
these petits soins and took no notice of them; not rudely in any way,
but he was quite indifferent; very remarkable in a man du commun.

"Never mind.... Be nice to him just the same!" Sipiagin begged of her.

Valentina Mihailovna promised to do what he wanted and fulfilled
her promise conscientiously. She began by having a tete-a-tete with
Kollomietzev. What she said to him remains a secret, but he came to the
table with the air of a man who had made up his mind to be discreet and
submissive at all costs. This "resignation" gave his whole bearing a
slight touch of melancholy; and what dignity... oh, what dignity there
was in every one of his movements! Valentina Mihailovna introduced
Solomin to everybody (he looked more attentively at Mariana than at
any of the others), and made him sit beside her on her right at table.
Kollomietzev sat on her left, and as he unfolded his serviette screwed
up his face and smiled, as much as to say, "Well, now let us begin our
little comedy!" Sipiagin sat on the opposite side and watched him with
some anxiety. By a new arrangement of Madame Sipiagina, Nejdanov was not
put next to Mariana as usual, but between Anna Zaharovna and Sipiagin.
Mariana found her card (as the dinner was a stately one) on her
serviette between Kollomietzev and Kolia. The dinner was excellently
served; there was even a "menu"--a painted card lay before each person.

Directly soup was finished, Sipiagin again brought the conversation
round to his factory, and from there went on to Russian m