He felt her coming towards him. The flutter of her cloak, it touched him, and her step was light, like a bird limping.
"You read it?" she whispered, "I saw you at the Mariínski; and there—there are the violets on the table, by the violin. Have you forgotten?"
Velasco started: "Who are you?" he exclaimed. "Not Kaya!" He wheeled around and faced her savagely: "You Kaya, never! Was it you who threw the violets—you?"
His dark eyes measured the shrinking form, bent and crippled, shrouded; and he cried out in his disappointment like a peevish boy: "I thought it was she—she! Kaya was young, fair, her face was like a flower; her hair was like gold; her lips were parted, arched and sweet; her eyes—You, you are not Kaya!—Never!"
His voice was angry and full of scorn: "It was all a dream, a mistake. Go—out of my sight; begone! I'll have nothing to do with anarchists."
He snatched the violets from the table and flung them on the hearth: "Begone, or I'll call the police." He was in a tempest of rage. His disappointment rose in his throat and choked him.
The old woman shrank back from him step by step. He followed threateningly:
"Begone, you beggar."
His heart beat unpleasantly. Devil take the old woman! Impostor! She was old and ugly as sin. He was sleepy and weary. Why had he taken the violets; why had he read the note? If the girl were not Kaya, then who—who?
"Come," he cried sharply, "Be off!"