"No, I'd better take it from the exercise-book," said Sasha laughingly.
He found a clean exercise-book, tore out the middle page and was about to run back to the drawing-room when he saw Liudmilla at the door.
"May I come in, master of the house?" she asked playfully.
"Please, I shall be very glad!" exclaimed Sasha.
Liudmilla seated herself at his table and twisted a funnel from a piece of paper. With a preoccupied expression, she began to pour the scent from the bottle into the sprinkler. The paper funnel, at the bottom and the side, where the trickle of scent ran, became wet and dark. The aromatic liquid accumulated in the funnel and dripped into the sprinkler below. There was a warm, sweet aroma of rose mixed with a poignant odour of spirit. Liudmilla poured half of the scent from the bottle into the sprinkler and said:
"That'll be enough."
And she began to screw the top on the scent-sprinkler. Then she rolled up the piece of wet paper and rubbed it between the palms of her hands.
"Smell!" she said to Sasha and put her palm to his face.
Sasha bent over, closed his eyes, and inhaled. Liudmilla laughed, lightly touched his lips with her palm and held her hand to his mouth. Sasha blushed and kissed her warm, scented hand with a gentle contact of his trembling lips. Liudmilla sighed; a tender expression crossed her attractive face, and then changed to her habitual expression of careless gaiety. She said:
"Now, just keep still while I sprinkle you."