“No.”

It was said that there were other reasons for his hurried departure; but as to this, and as to his movements in Moscow, and as to his prolonged absence from St. Petersburg, we are able to give very little information.

Gania looked more intently at her.

“I don’t understand you.”

The old man tried to put a good face on the affair.

However, the invalid--to his immense satisfaction--ended by seriously alarming the prince.

Hippolyte rose all at once, looking troubled and almost frightened.

“Who indeed?” exclaimed Prince S.

“He is not at home.”

Both she and Aglaya stood and waited as though in expectation, and both looked at the prince like madwomen.

“What suspicion attaches to Evgenie Pavlovitch?”

“Of course it is nonsense, and in nonsense it would have ended, doubtless; but you know these fellows, they--”

“It’s all the same; you ought to have run after Aglaya though the other was fainting.”

“‘Escape, general! Go home!--’

“Why, he wears an ‘order,’ and it looks so well!”

No sooner had his sister left him alone, than Gania took the note out of his pocket, kissed it, and pirouetted around.

“Fits?” asked the prince, slightly surprised. “I very seldom have fits nowadays. I don’t know how it may be here, though; they say the climate may be bad for me.”

“No, I know nothing whatever about it. I assure you I had nothing at all to do with it.”

“And in point of fact, prince,” added Evgenie Pavlovitch, “you must allow that they could hardly have stayed here, considering that they knew of all that went on at your place, and in the face of your daily visits to their house, visits which you insisted upon making in spite of their refusal to see you.” “‘Dead Souls,’ yes, of course, dead. When I die, Colia, you must engrave on my tomb: The president joined in the general outcry. “Ha, ha, ha!”

“Oh, that wretched donkey again, I see!” cried the lady. “I assure you, prince, I was not guilty of the least--”

As they went downstairs the general regretted repeatedly that he had failed to introduce the prince to his friends.

“Perhaps, perhaps! I am not worthy of him, I know. But I think you are lying, all the same. He cannot hate me, and he cannot have said so. I am ready to forgive you, in consideration of your position; but I confess I thought better of you. I thought you were wiser, and more beautiful, too; I did, indeed! Well, take your treasure! See, he is gazing at you, he can’t recollect himself. Take him, but on one condition; go away at once, this instant!”

“Do you think so? Had I not just better tell him I have found it, and pretend I never guessed where it was?”

“Probably when he is alone he looks quite different, and hardly smiles at all!” thought the prince.

“Oh! it was the Kolpakoff business, and of course he would have been acquitted.”

Lizabetha Prokofievna went to bed and only rose again in time for tea, when the prince might be expected.

Gania stood before her, in his evening clothes, holding his white gloves and hat in his hand, speechless and motionless, with arms folded and eyes fixed on the fire.

Feeling that his question was somewhat gauche, he smiled angrily. Then as if vexed that he could not ever express what he really meant, he said irritably, in a loud voice:

“Undoubtedly so; Siberia, of course!” “I don’t understand what you are driving at!” he cried, almost angrily, “and, and--what an intriguer you are, Lebedeff!” he added, bursting into a fit of genuine laughter. Lebedeff could restrain himself no longer; he made his way through the row of chairs. She certainly did seem to be serious enough. She had flushed up all over and her eyes were blazing. “I was not at all afraid for myself, Gania, as you know well. It was not for my own sake that I have been so anxious and worried all this time! They say it is all to be settled to-day. What is to be settled?”

“Nastasia Philipovna, is this really you? You, once so refined and delicate of speech. Oh, what a tongue! What dreadful things you are saying,” cried the general, wringing his hands in real grief.

The prince expressed his thanks once more, and eating heartily the while, recommenced the narrative of his life in Switzerland, all of which we have heard before. Mrs. Epanchin became more and more pleased with her guest; the girls, too, listened with considerable attention. In talking over the question of relationship it turned out that the prince was very well up in the matter and knew his pedigree off by heart. It was found that scarcely any connection existed between himself and Mrs. Epanchin, but the talk, and the opportunity of conversing about her family tree, gratified the latter exceedingly, and she rose from the table in great good humour. It was generally agreed, afterwards, in recalling that evening, that from this moment Nastasia Philipovna seemed entirely to lose her senses. She continued to sit still in her place, looking around at her guests with a strange, bewildered expression, as though she were trying to collect her thoughts, and could not. Then she suddenly turned to the prince, and glared at him with frowning brows; but this only lasted one moment. Perhaps it suddenly struck her that all this was a jest, but his face seemed to reassure her. She reflected, and smiled again, vaguely.

“Parfen Semionovitch.”

Colia took the prince to a public-house in the Litaynaya, not far off. In one of the side rooms there sat at a table--looking like one of the regular guests of the establishment--Ardalion Alexandrovitch, with a bottle before him, and a newspaper on his knee. He was waiting for the prince, and no sooner did the latter appear than he began a long harangue about something or other; but so far gone was he that the prince could hardly understand a word.

“I assure you of it,” laughed Ivan Petrovitch, gazing amusedly at the prince.

She was silent a moment to get breath, and to recover her composure.

“Oh, you must forgive him the blank wall,” said the prince, quietly. “He has come down to see a few trees now, poor fellow.”

“Excuse me, but I think you must have something else that you wished to speak about, Evgenie Pavlovitch?”

The general had not come down from town as yet, nor had Evgenie Pavlovitch arrived.

“Oh, no, no!” said the prince at last, “that was not what I was going to say--oh no! I don’t think you would ever have been like Osterman.”

“Mr. Terentieff,” said the prince.