“He shall just see me looking like this!” she thought.
Riasantzeff was standing in the dining-room, saying in his remarkably pleasant voice to Nicolai Yegorovitch:
“Of course, it’s rather strange, but quite harmless.”
At the sound of his voice Lialia felt her heart throb violently, as if it must break. When Riasantzeff saw her, he suddenly stopped talking and came forward to meet her with outstretched arms. She alone knew that this gesture signified his desire to embrace her.
Lialia looked up shyly at him, and her lips trembled. Without a word she pulled her hand away, crossed the room and opened the glass door leading to the balcony. Riasantzeff watched her, calmly, but with slight astonishment.
“My Ludmilla Nicolaijevna is cross,” he said to Nicolai Yegorovitch with serio-comic gravity of manner. The latter burst out laughing.
“You had better go and make it up.”
“There’s nothing else to be done!” sighed Riasantzeff, in droll fashion, as he followed Lialia on to the balcony.
It was still raining. The monotonous sound of falling drops filled the air; but the sky seemed clearer now, and there was a break in the clouds.
Lialia, her cheek propped against one of the cold, damp pillars of the veranda, let the rain beat upon her bare head, so that her hair was wet through.