“There is really no use staying here just at present,” she assented, sadly, without pausing.
They grew silent again. The gloom of the little parlour was thickening so rapidly that it seemed as though the outline of Clara’s face, as she walked back and forth, became vaguer every time she turned in Pavel’s direction.
Presently, with a burst of amorous tenderness, he got up, saying:
“Clanya! Let us go for a rest somewhere. You know you need it.”
“You need it even more than I do, poor boy,” she replied, stepping up close to him. “I do wish you would go home for a month or two—or somewhere else. As to myself, I should first like to see my parents. The riots may strike Miroslav at any moment. If any harm came to them, I should never forgive myself. I must get them away from there. That’s all I can think of.” There was an obvious blank in her words. She left something unsaid, and the consciousness of it made him uncomfortable.
“But that’s easily arranged,” he urged. “You can send them money and invite them to some safe place.”
“That’s what I have been thinking of. I am so restless I wish I could start to-morrow. It couldn’t be arranged too soon. There are persistent rumors that a riot is coming there. I shan’t be gone long, dearest.”
He had it at the tip of his tongue to force a discussion of their party’s attitude toward the riots and to have it out once for all. In his imagined debates with her on the subject he had often exclaimed: “I happen to belong to a class of land-robbers and profligates; now, suppose the revolution breaks out and my class is attacked by the people, will that affect me? A nice revolutionist I should be if it did!” This and other arguments were all ready; what he lacked, however, was the courage to bring up the topic. As to her promise to marry him when the great conspiracy was out of the way, her redeeming it now, while she was so tremulously absorbed in the question of her parents’ safety, could not be thought of.
He gathered her to him and kissed her, at once sympathetically and appealingly.
“Go home, Pasha,” she besought. “But not to Miroslav. You won’t rest there. Go to some of your mother’s country places, or, perhaps some other place would be safer for you. Go and take good care of yourself. It would be too terrible if I found you arrested when I got back.”