Yourii suspected something.
“From whom?” he asked, sharply,
“From Sinotschka Karsavina,” said Lialia, shaking her finger at him, significantly.
Yourii blushed deeply. To receive through his sister a little pink, scented letter like this seemed utterly silly; in fact ridiculous. It positively annoyed him. Lialia, as she walked beside him, prattled in sentimental fashion about his attachment to Sina, just as sisters will, who are intensely interested in their brothers’ love-affairs. She said how fond she was of Sina, and how delighted she would be if they made a match of it, and got married.
At the luckless word “married,” Yourii’s face grew redder still, and in his eyes there was a malevolent look. He saw before him an entire romance of the usual provincial type; rose-pink billets-doux, sisters as confidantes, orthodox matrimony, with its inevitable commonplace sequel, home, wife, and babies—the one thing on earth that he dreaded most.
“Oh! Enough of all that twaddle, please!” he said in so sharp a tone that Lialia was amazed.
“Don’t make such a fuss!” she exclaimed, pettishly. “If you are in love, what does it matter? I can’t think why you always pose as such an extraordinary hero.”
This last sentence had a touch of feminine spite in it, and the shaft struck home. Then, with a graceful movement of her dress which disclosed her dainty open-work stockings, she turned abruptly on her heel like some petulant princess, and went indoors.
Yourii watched her, with anger in his dark eyes, as he tore open the envelope.
YOURII NICOLAIJEVITCH:
“If you have time, and the wish to do so, will you come to the monastery to-day? I shall be there with my aunt. She is preparing for the Communion, and will be in church the whole time. It will be dreadfully dull for me and I want to talk to you about lots of things. Do come. Perhaps I ought not to have written to you, but, anyhow, I shall expect you.”