"In the 'Russkaya Misl,'" the young woman explained graciously.
"In what number?" continued Volodin.
"I can't quite remember. I think it was in one of the summer numbers," replied Nadezhda, still graciously but with some astonishment.
A schoolboy suddenly appeared from behind the door.
"It was published in the May number," he said, with his hand on the door-knob, glancing at his sister and her guests with cheerful blue eyes.
"You're too young to read novels!" growled Peredonov angrily. "You ought to work instead of reading indecent stories."
Nadezhda Vassilyevna looked sternly at her brother.
"It is a nice thing to stand behind doors and listen," she remarked, and lifting her hands crossed her little fingers at a right angle.
The boy made a wry face and disappeared. He went into his own room, stood in the corner and gazed at the clock; two little fingers crossed was a sign that he should stand in the corner for ten minutes. "No," he thought sadly, "it was much better when Mamma was alive. She only put an umbrella in the corner."
Meanwhile in the drawing-room Volodin was promising his hostess that he would certainly get the May number of the "Russkaya Misl," in order to read Mister Chekhov's story. Peredonov listened with an expression of unconcealed boredom on his face. At last he said: