“And that pleases you?”
She kept mysteriously silent for a moment. Then with energy, but in a confidential tone—
“I am convinced;” she declared, “that this extraordinary man is meditating some vast plan, some great undertaking; he is possessed by it—he suffers from it—and from being alone in the world.”
“And so he’s looking for helpers?” I commented, turning away my head.
Again there was a silence.
“Why not?” she said at last.
The dead brother, the dying mother, the foreign friend, had fallen into a distant background. But, at the same time, Peter Ivanovitch was absolutely nowhere now. And this thought consoled me. Yet I saw the gigantic shadow of Russian life deepening around her like the darkness of an advancing night. It would devour her presently. I inquired after Mrs. Haldin—that other victim of the deadly shade.
A remorseful uneasiness appeared in her frank eyes. Mother seemed no worse, but if I only knew what strange fancies she had sometimes! Then Miss Haldin, glancing at her watch, declared that she could not stay a moment longer, and with a hasty hand-shake ran off lightly.
Decidedly, Mr. Razumov was not to turn up that day. Incomprehensible youth!
But less than an hour afterwards, while crossing the Place Mollard, I caught sight of him boarding a South Shore tramcar.