"Reasons ... reasons."
"Hm!" Again Kuzma Vassilyevitch would have touched the figure, again she stepped back. "So that's why I never saw you. I must own I never suspected your existence. And the old lady, Madame Fritsche, is your aunt, too?"
"Yes ... aunt."
"Hm! You don't seem to understand Russian very well. What's your name, allow me to ask?"
"Colibri."
"What?"
"Colibri."
"Colibri! That's an out-of-the-way name! There are insects like that in Africa, if I remember right?"
XV
Colibri gave a short, queer laugh ... like a clink of glass in her throat. She shook her head, looked round, laid her guitar on the table and going quickly to the door, abruptly shut it. She moved briskly and nimbly with a rapid, hardly audible sound like a lizard; at the back her hair fell below her knees.