Andrey Antonovitch flushed crimson; his face seemed to twitch.
“Leave off, leave off at once!” he cried, trembling with rage. “And don’t you dare … sir …”
“What’s the matter with you? You seem to be angry!”
“Allow me to inform you, sir, that I’ve no intention of putting up with your sans façon henceforward, and I beg you to remember …”
“Why, damn it all, he is in earnest!”
“Hold your tongue, hold your tongue”—Von Lembke stamped on the carpet—“and don’t dare …”
God knows what it might have come to. Alas, there was one circumstance involved in the matter of which neither Pyotr Stepanovitch nor even Yulia Mihailovna herself had any idea. The luckless Andrey Antonovitch had been so greatly upset during the last few days that he had begun to be secretly jealous of his wife and Pyotr Stepanovitch. In solitude, especially at night, he spent some very disagreeable moments.
“Well, I imagined that if a man reads you his novel two days running till after midnight and wants to hear your opinion of it, he has of his own act discarded official relations, anyway.… Yulia Mihailovna treats me as a friend; there’s no making you out,” Pyotr Stepanovitch brought out, with a certain dignity indeed. “Here is your novel, by the way.” He laid on the table a large heavy manuscript rolled up in blue paper.
Lembke turned red and looked embarrassed.
“Where did you find it?” he asked discreetly, with a rush of joy which he was unable to suppress, though he did his utmost to conceal it.