"Seventen."
"Seventeen, you mean?"
"Yes."
Kuzma Vassilyevitch scrutinised his fantastic companion closely.
"What a beautiful creature you are!" he said, emphatically. "Marvellous! Really marvellous! What hair! What eyes! And your eyebrows ... ough!"
Colibri laughed again and again looked round with her magnificent eyes.
"Yes, I am a beauty! Sit down, and I'll sit down ... beside."
"By all means! But say what you like, you are a strange sister for Emilie! You are not in the least like her."
"Yes, I am sister ... cousin. Here ... take ... a flower. A nice flower. It smells." She took out of her girdle a sprig of white lilac, sniffed it, bit off a petal and gave him the whole sprig. "Will you have jam? Nice jam ... from Constantinople ... sorbet?" Colibri took from the small chest of drawers a gilt jar wrapped in a piece of crimson silk with steel spangles on it, a silver spoon, a cut glass decanter and a tumbler like it. "Eat some sorbet, sir; it is fine. I will sing to you.... Will you?" She took up the guitar.
"You sing, then?" asked Kuzma Vassilyevitch, putting a spoonful of really excellent sorbet into his mouth.