His face wore a severe and surprised expression. Orloff did not seem in the least taken aback, but, nodding his head at the doctor, he remarked—
"It's nothing! nothing but a little clearing up of the atmosphere between man and wife."
And he laughed with a half-nervous, half-sneering smile in the doctor's face.
"Why were you absent from duty to-day?" said the doctor angrily, for he was vexed by Orloff's sneering, impertinent manner.
Grigori shrugged his shoulders, and replied coolly—
"I was otherwise engaged.... I had business of my own to attend to...."
"Oh!... Was that so? And who was making all that row last night?"
"We were," Grigori replied.
"Oh! it was you ... was it?... Very good, very good!... You make yourselves quite at home here, it seems.... Go out without permission...."
"We are not slaves...."