“I don’t know”—she stopped her work at the table and stood, her hand up to her brow as though she would shade her eyes from the light—“I wish he wasn’t coming—the new Englishman, I mean. Better perhaps as we were—Nicholas—” she stopped short. “Oh, I don’t know! They’re difficult times, Ivan Andreievitch.”
The door opened and old Uncle Ivan came in. He was dressed very smartly with a clean white shirt and a black bow tie and black patent leather shoes, and his round face shone as the sun.
“Ah, Mr. Durward,” he said, trotting forward. “Good health to you! What excellent weather we’re sharing.”
“So we are, M. Semyonov,” I answered him. “Although it did rain most of yesterday you know. But weather of the soul perhaps you mean? In that case I’m very glad to hear that you are well.”
“Ah—of the soul?” He always spoke his words very carefully, clipping and completing them, and then standing back to look at them as though they were china ornaments arranged on a shining table. “No—my soul to-day is not of the first rank, I’m afraid.”
It was obvious that he was in a state of the very greatest excitement; he could not keep still, but walked up and down beside the long table, fingering the knives and forks.
Then Nina burst in upon us in one of her frantic rages. Her tempers were famous both for their ferocity and the swiftness of their passing. In the course of them she was like some impassioned bird of brilliant plumages, tossing her feathers, fluttering behind the bars of her cage at some impertinent, teasing passer-by. She stood there now in the doorway, gesticulating with her hands.
“Nu, Tznaiesh schto? Michael Alexandrovitch has put me off—says he is busy all night at the office. He busy all night! Don’t I know the business he’s after? And it’s the third time—I won’t see him again—no, I won’t. He—”
“Good-evening, Nina Michailovna,” I said, smiling. She turned to me.
“Durdles—Mr. Durdles—only listen. It was all arranged for to-night—the Parisian, and then we were to come straight back—”