“What have they done,” I asked, “to make you take this step?”
“Something has happened....” she said slowly. “I can’t tell you.”
“Just come and talk to Vera.”
“No, it’s hopeless... I can’t see her again. But, Durdles... tell her it’s not her fault.”
At the sound of my pet name I took courage again.
“But tell me, Nina.... Do you love this man?”
She turned round and looked at Grogoff as though she were seeing him for the first time.
“Love?... Oh no, not love! But he will be kind to me, I think. And I must be myself, be a woman, not a child any longer.”
Then, suddenly clearing her voice, speaking very firmly, looking me full in the face, she said:
“Tell Vera... that I saw... what happened that Thursday afternoon—the Thursday of the Revolution week. Tell her that—when you’re alone with her. Tell her that—then she’ll understand.”