Nikolai Artemyevitch scowled, walked twice up and down the room, took a velvet box with the dressing-case out of the bureau and looked at it a long while, rubbing it with a silk handkerchief. Then he sat down before a looking-glass and began carefully arranging his thick black hair, turning his head to right and to left with a dignified countenance, his tongue pressed into his cheek, never taking his eyes off his parting. Some one coughed behind his back; he looked round and saw the manservant who had brought him in his coffee.
‘What do you want?’ he asked him.
‘Nikolai Artemyevitch,’ said the man with a certain solemnity, ‘you are our master?’
‘I know that; what next!’
‘Nikolai Artemyevitch, graciously do not be angry with me; but I, having been in your honour’s service from a boy, am bound in dutiful devotion to bring you——’
‘Well what is it?’
The man shifted uneasily as he stood.
‘You condescended to say, your honour,’ he began, ‘that your honour did not know where Elena Nikolaevna was pleased to go. I have information about that.’
‘What lies are you telling, idiot?’
‘That’s as your honour likes, but I saw our young lady three days ago, as she was pleased to go into a house!’