"Why must it, Papa?"
"Because this friend of yours is coming, and also because—well, it might make things awkward."
"Do not disturb yourself on Bazarov's account. He is altogether superior to such things."
"Yes, so you say; but the mischief lies in the fact that the wing is so small."
"Papa, Papa!" protested Arkady. "Almost one would think that you considered yourself to blame for something; whereas you have nothing to reproach yourself with."
"Ah, but I have," responded Nikolai Petrovitch. His face had turned redder than ever.
"No, you have not, Papa," repeated Arkady with a loving smile, while adding to himself with a feeling of indulgent tenderness for his good, kind father, as well as with a certain sense of "superiority": "Why is he making these excuses?"
"I beg of you to say no more," he continued with an involuntary feeling of exultation in being "grown up" and "emancipated." As he did so Nikolai Petrovitch glanced at him from under the fingers of the hand which was still rubbing his brows. At the same moment something seemed to give his heart a stab. Mentally, as before, he blamed himself.
"Here our fields begin," he observed after a pause.
"I see," rejoined Arkady. "And that is our forest in front, I suppose?"