“I knew it. A mere girl could not hold you ... _une nullité, cette pauvre petite fille, qui n’a que sa figure_ ... shy, inexperienced, devoid of elegance.”
“She could not. I have torn myself free.”
“And have found what you have long been seeking, have you not? What happened in the park to excite you so?”
After a little fencing, Raisky proceeded with his story. “When I thought my happiness was within my grasp, I heard....”
“Tushin was there?” whispered Paulina Karpovna, holding her breath.
He nodded silently, and raised his glass once more.
“_Dites tout_,” she said with a malicious smile.
“She was walking alone, lost in thought,” he said in a confidential tone, while Paulina Karpovna played with her watch chain, and listened with strained attention. “I was at her heels, determined to have an answer from her. She took one or two steps down the face of the precipice, when someone suddenly came towards her.”
“‘Good evening, Vera Vassilievna,’ he said. ‘How do you do?’ She shuddered.”
“Not at all. I hid myself and listened. ‘What are you doing here?’ she said. ‘I am spending two days in town,’ he said, ‘to be present at your sister’s fête, and I have chosen that day.... Decide, Vera Vassilievna, whether I am to love or not.”
“_Où le sentiment va-t-il se nicher?_” exclaimed Paulina Karpovna. “Even in that clod.”
“‘Ivan Ivanovich!’ pleaded Vera,” continued Raisky. “He interrupted her with ‘Vera Vassilievna, decide whether to-morrow I should ask Tatiana Markovna for your hand, or throw myself into the Volga!’”
“_Mais, il est ridicule_. What did she do? She moaned, cried yes and no?”
“She answered, ‘No, Ivan Ivanovich, give me time to consider whether I can respond with the same deep affection that you feel for me. Give me six months, a year, and then I will answer “yes” or “no.”’ Your room is so hot, Paulina Karpovna, could we have a little air?”
Raisky thought he had invented enough, and glanced up at his hostess, who wore an expression of disappointment.
“_Oui_,” he said. “In any case Tushin did not abandon hope. On the next day, Marfinka’s birthday, he appeared again to hear her last word. From the precipice he went through the park, and she accompanied him. It seems that next day his hopes revived. Mine are for ever gone.”