“Oh, you dear, good Alexey Ivanovitch, thanks!” she cried, enthusiastic with delight. “I'll sing all the evening for that! I sing beautifully, you know! I was telling you a wicked story before dinner. Oh, I wish you would come down here again; I'd tell you all, then, and lots of other things besides—for you are a dear, kind, good fellow, like—like Katia!”
And sure enough when they reached home she sat down and sang a couple of songs in a voice which, though entirely untrained, was of great natural sweetness and considerable strength.
When the party returned from the garden they had found Pavel Pavlovitch drinking tea with the old folks on the balcony. He had probably been talking on serious topics, as he was to take his departure the day after to-morrow for nine months. He never so much as glanced at Velchaninoff and the rest when they entered; but he evidently had not complained to the authorities, and all was quiet as yet. But, when Nadia began to sing, he came in. Nadia did not answer a single one of his questions, but he did not seem offended by this, and took his stand behind her chair. Once there, his whole appearance gave it to be understood that that was his own place by right, and that he allowed none to dispute it.
“It's Alexey Ivanovitch's turn to sing now!” cried the girls, when Nadia's song was finished, and all crowded round to hear Velchaninoff, who sat down to accompany himself. He chose a song of Glinke's, too much neglected nowadays; it ran:—
“When from your merry lips
Tenderness flows,” &c.
Velchaninoff seemed to address the words to Nadia exclusively, but the whole party stood around him. His voice had long since gone the way of all flesh, but it was clear that he must have had a good one once, and it so happened that Velchaninoff had heard this particular song many years ago, from Glinkes' own lips, when a student at the university, and remembered the great effect that it had made upon him when he first heard it. The song was full of the most intense passion of expression, and Velchaninoff sang it well, with his eyes fixed upon Nadia.
Amid the applause that followed the completion of the performance, Pavel Pavlovitch came forward, seized Nadia's hand and drew her away from the proximity of Velchaninoff; he then returned to the latter at the piano, and, with every evidence of frantic rage, whispered to him, his lips all of a tremble,
“One moment with you!”
Velchaninoff, seeing that the man was capable of worse things in his then frame of mind, took Pavel's hand and led him out through the balcony into the garden—quite dark now.