"Whither are you going, my dear Christofór Feódoritch? Are not you going to stay and drink tea?"
"I must go home,"—said Lemm in a surly voice:—"my head aches."
"Come, what nonsense!—stay. You and I will have a dispute over Shakespeare."
"My head aches,"—repeated the old man.
"We tried to play a Beethoven sonata without you,"—went on Pánshin, amiably encircling his waist with his arm, and smiling brightly:—"but we couldn't make it go at all. Just imagine, I couldn't play two notes in succession correctly."
"You vould haf done better to sing your romantz,"—retorted Lemm, pushing aside Pánshin's arm, and left the room.
Liza ran after him. She overtook him on the steps.
"Christofór Feódoritch, listen,"—she said to him in German, as she accompanied him to the gate, across the close-cropped green grass of the yard:—"I am to blame toward you—forgive me."
Lemm made no reply.
"I showed your cantata to Vladímir Nikoláitch; I was convinced that he would appreciate it,—and it really did please him greatly."