“Preference, gentlemen,” he suggested. “A little game, if you like, in the open air. How would that do, eh?”
Osadchi, Nikoläiev, and Andrusevich sat down to cards, and with a deep and sorrowful sigh, Lieschtschenko stationed himself, as usual, behind the players. Nikoläiev refused to join the game, and stood out for some time, but gave way at last. As he sat down he looked about him several times in evident anxiety, searching with his eyes for Shurochka, but the gleam of the fire blinded him, and a scowling, worried expression became fixed on his face.
Romashov pursued a narrow path amongst the trees. He neither understood nor knew what was awaiting him, but he felt in his heart a vaguely oppressive but, nevertheless, delicious anguish whilst waiting for something that was to happen. He stopped. Behind him he heard a slight rustling of branches, and, after that, the sound of quick steps and the frou-frou of a silken skirt. Shurochka was approaching him with hurried steps. She resembled a dryad when, in her white dress, she glided softly forth between the dark trunks of the mighty oaks. Romashov went up and embraced her without uttering a word. Shurochka was breathing heavily and in gasps. Her warm breath often met Romashov’s cheeks and lips, and he felt beneath his hand her heart’s violent throbs.
“Let’s sit here,” whispered Shurochka.
She sank down on the grass, and began with both hands to arrange her hair at the back. Romashov laid himself at her feet, but, as the ground just there sloped downwards, he saw only the soft and delicate outlines of her neck and chin.
Suddenly she said to him in a low, trembling voice—
“Romochka, are you happy?”
“Yes—happy,” he answered. Then, after reviewing in his mind, for an instant, all the events of that day, he repeated fervently: “Oh, yes—so happy, but tell me why you are to-day so, so?...”
“So? What do you mean?”
She bent lower towards him, gazed into his eyes, and all her lovely countenance was for once visible to Romashov.