“Why?”
I felt myself turning pale! “I am afraid,” I stammered, “I am afraid—that Bozevsky—”
“Well?” asked Vassili serenely, pouring some vodka into his champagne and drinking it.
“I am afraid that Bozevsky is falling in love with me.”
“And who would not fall in love with you, dushka?” laughed Vassili. “As for Bozevsky, may the wolves eat him.”
And dinner being over, he lit his cigar and went out.
········
I go sadly upstairs to the nursery where Tioka and Tania, like blonde seraphs, lie asleep.
A dim lamp hangs between the two white cots and illumines their favorite picture—an artless painting of the Virgin Mary, holding in her youthful arms the infant Jesus with a count's coronet on His head.
I kneel down beside the two little beds and weep.