“He is waiting for me. Good God!” she suddenly stopped, and a flush of colour flooded her face.
“Oh! Come now. If he is an unconventional man! You know, Lizaveta Nikolaevna, it’s none of my business. I am a complete outsider, and you know that yourself. But, still, I wish you well.… If your ‘fairy boat’ has failed you, if it has turned out to be nothing more than a rotten old hulk, only fit to be chopped up …”
“Ah! That’s fine, that’s lovely,” cried Liza.
“Lovely, and yet your tears are falling. You must have spirit. You must be as good as a man in every way. In our age, when woman.… Foo, hang it,” Pyotr Stepanovitch was on the point of spitting. “And the chief point is that there is nothing to regret. It may all turn out for the best. Mavriky Nikolaevitch is a man.… In fact, he is a man of feeling though not talkative, but that’s a good thing, too, as long as he has no conventional notions, of course.…”
“Lovely, lovely!” Liza laughed hysterically.
“Well, hang it all … Lizaveta Nikolaevna,” said Pyotr Stepanovitch suddenly piqued. “I am simply here on your account.… It’s nothing to me.… I helped you yesterday when you wanted it yourself. To-day … well, you can see Mavriky Nikolaevitch from here; there he’s sitting; he doesn’t see us. I say, Lizaveta Nikolaevna, have you ever read ‘Polenka Saxe’?”
“What’s that?”
“It’s the name of a novel, ‘Polenka Saxe.’ I read it when I was a student.… In it a very wealthy official of some sort, Saxe, arrested his wife at a summer villa for infidelity.… But, hang it; it’s no consequence! You’ll see, Mavriky Nikolaevitch will make you an offer before you get home. He doesn’t see us yet.”
“Ach! Don’t let him see us!” Liza cried suddenly, like a mad creature. “Come away, come away! To the woods, to the fields!”
And she ran back.