But now an unexpected obstacle arose: Liza absolutely rejected the plan; she had listened to it with terror, and if Velchaninoff had, in his excited argument with Pavel Pavlovitch, had time to glance at the child's face, he would have observed her expression of absolute despair at this moment.
“I won't go!” she said, quietly but firmly.
“There—look at that! Just like her mamma!”
“I'm not like mamma, I'm not like mamma!” cried Liza, wringing her little hands in despair. “Oh, papa—papa!” she added, “if you desert me—” she suddenly threw herself upon the alarmed Velchaninoff—“If you take me away—” she cried—“I'll——”
But Liza had no time to finish her sentence, for Pavel Pavlovitch suddenly seized her by the arm and collar and hustled her into the next room with unconcealed rage. For several minutes Velchaninoff listened to the whispering going on there,—whisperings and seemingly subdued crying on the part of Liza. He was about to follow the pair, when suddenly out came Pavel Pavlovitch, and stated—with a disagreeable grin—that Liza would come directly.
Velchaninoff tried not to look at him and kept his eyes fixed on the other side of the room.
The elderly woman whom Velchaninoff had met on the stairs also made her appearance, and packed Liza's things into a neat little carpet bag.
“Is it you that are going to take the little lady away, sir?” she asked; “if so, you are doing a good deed! She's a nice quiet child, and you are saving her from goodness knows what, here!”
“Oh! come—Maria Sisevna,”—began Pavel Pavlovitch.
“Well? What? Isn't it true! Arn't you ashamed to let a girl of her intelligence see the things that you allow to go on here? The carriage has arrived for you, sir,—you ordered one for the Liesnoy, didn't you?”