“Yes, and I can assure you he is a gentleman, even if he is in the gendarme service. Some day, I hope, he’ll give it up. He is really too good to be in the business.”
Pavel ascribed her ebullition to the nature of the subject, but he soon found that she was in the same state of excitement when a railroad ticket was the topic. She looked twenty-three but she had the cheeks and eyes of a chubby infant, while her arms and figure had the lank, immature effect of a girl of thirteen.
While they sat talking, a dark man in the military uniform of the Medico-Surgical Academy entered the café. It was Parmet, the man Pavel was waiting for. Finding him engaged, the newcomer passed his table without greeting him, took a seat in a remote corner and buried himself in a book.
Mlle. Safonoff did all the talking. She had not sat at Boulatoff’s table half an hour nor said much about Miroslav before she had poured out some of her most intimate thoughts to him.
“If you think it a pleasure to be the sister of a gendarme officer you are mistaken,” she said. “It is not agreeable to be treated by everybody as though you had been put at the college to spy upon the girls, is it? My brother is a better man than the brothers and fathers and grandfathers of all the other student-girls put together, I assure you, prince. But then, of course, you may think I’m trying to spy on you, too.”
“No, I don’t,” said Boulatoff with a laugh, pricking up his ears.
“Don’t you, really?” And her eyes bubbled.
“Of course, I don’t.”
“Oh, if you knew how good he is, my brother. Do you remember the time when poor Pievakin left Miroslav? I know you do. You were in the eighth class then. Well, I may as well tell you, prince”—she lowered her voice—“had it not been for my brother there would have been no end of arrests at the railroad station. He simply told his men not to make a fuss. You see, I can confide in you without hesitation, for who would suspect a Boulatoff of—pardon the word—spying? But I, why, I am the sister of a gendarme officer, so it is quite natural to suppose, and so forth and so on, don’t you know.”
“Do you know the girl who made that speech?”