The Circle was a loose, informal organisation. There were no fixed rules or ceremonies for the admission of members nor anything like regularly elected officers. Nor, indeed, did the members practise formal communism among themselves, although the property of one was to a considerable extent the property of all.
The gathering to-night was naturally larger than usual, owing to the great news of the day. No one except Pavel knew anything about the arrested man, each wondering whether the others did. To betray inquisitiveness, however, would have been unconspiratorlike, so as they sat about, whispering, in twos or threes, they were at once trying to suppress their curiosity and to draw each other out.
The telegraph operator and Orlovsky’s superior left early in the evening, but there soon came two other members, a sergeant of the captain’s command and a gawky seminarist with a trick of drawing in his neck and throwing out his Adam’s apple when he laughed.
The sergeant took a seat beside his officer and the two fell into conversation about their regiment, while the theological student at once set to plying Pavel with questions. Elkin, in an embroidered Little-Russian shirt, sat smoking a pipe and smiling non-committally. Every little while he would remove the pipe from his mouth, take a grave look at the theologian and resume his pipe and his smile.
The little girl sat on the captain’s lap, quietly playing with his sword until she fell asleep. When Clara beheld the officer struggling to keep his luxurious side-whiskers from waking the child, she took her niece in her arms and carried her, with noiseless kisses, toward the door.
“I’ll soon be back. It isn’t far,” she whispered to Orlovsky, declining his assistance.
The men followed her out of the room with fond glances. More than half of them were in love with her.
When she got back, somewhat short of breath, Boulatoff was describing the general feeling in the universities and among working people. His talk was vague. His rolling baritone rang dry. And now his grip on the subject was weakened still further by the reappearance of the girl in whom, during the first few minutes, he instinctively felt a rival centre of interest. No sooner, however, had the seminarist attacked the party press than the prince became furious and made a favourable impression. Once or twice he fell into Zachar’s manner and even used several of his arguments. The seminarist urged his objections chiefly because he wanted to prove to himself and to the others that he was a man of convictions and not one to quail before a revolutionary “general.” But Pavel took him seriously. Once when the seminarist attempted to interrupt him, Clara said, forlornly:
“He’s bound to be right. He’s just bound to be right.”
“Don’t cry,” said Cyclops. Several of the men laughed, and when Clara joined them their eyes betrayed her power over them. Nothing betrays your feelings toward another person more surely than the way you take his merriment.