Ivanov extinguished the candle, through custom finding his bread and milk in the dark, and hastily consumed it without sitting down. Mintz stood a moment by the door; then went out, slamming it behind him.
Lydia Constantinovna now had her feet on the carpet and her head was bowed. Her eyes under their long lashes were blank and limpid, like lakes amid reeds. Her hands were clasped round her knees.
"How was Sergius?" she enquired, without raising her head.
"Boorish, he has gone to bed," answered Mintz.
He was about to sit beside her, but she rose, arranged her hair mechanically, and smiled faintly and tenderly—not at Mintz, but into the empty space.
"To bed? Well, it is time. Good rest!" she said softly. "Ah, how the perfume torments me. I feel giddy."
She went to the other end of the room, Mintz following her, and halted on the threshold. In the stillness of the night the pattering rain could be heard distinctly. Lydia Constantinovna leaned against the white door, throwing back her head, and began to speak; avoiding Mintz's eyes, she endeavoured to express herself simply and clearly, but the words seemed dry as they fell from her lips:
"I am very tired, Mintz, I am going to bed at once. You go too. Goodbye until tomorrow. We shall not meet again to-night. Do you understand, Mintz? It is my wish."
Mintz stood still, his legs wide apart, his arms akimbo, his head hanging. Then with a sad, submissive smile he answered in an unexpectedly mild tone: "Very well, then, All right, I understand you. It is quite all right."
Lydia Constantinovna stretched out her hand, speaking in the unaffected, friendly way she had desired earlier: "I know you are a malicious, bored, lonely cynic, like … like an old homeless dog … But you are kind and intelligent…. You know I will never leave you— we are so…. But now I am going in to him … just for the last time."