"How so?" asks Nita shortly, quite cuttingly.
"Papa left me with her before he left Paris."
"That is incredible," says Nita, shocked. "He certainly must know--" She hesitates.
"Naturally, I also wondered at this choice of a protector," says Sonia, evenly.
"At first it was all very well; she only seemed a little peculiar and very untidy. She passed the whole morning in a wrapper, nibbling now at paté de foie gras, now at bonbons. In the afternoon she slept, and in the evening she by turns wrote letters and played the piano, especially Beethoven's sonatas. But at the full moon she became terribly abnormal. The whole night long she rushed here and there, wringing her hands, threw herself on my bed, demanded promises of friendship from me, which she returned with the most fiery kisses, and finally--you will not believe it, Nita, and you are the first to whom I tell it, but I still remember the petrified horror which seized me at that time--she confessed to me, minutely, it was in vain to wish to restrain her, her love affair with Lensky!"
"Shameless woman!" murmured Nita, angrily.
"Think of my position," continued Sonia. "How could I free myself? I could not repeat her confession. Then she herself helped me out of the difficulty--in what a manner! Three days after the moonlight scene, she told me, in the greatest excitement, Lensky was to give a concert in Berlin, and asked me to travel after him with her. When I refused, she travelled alone. Heavens! how pale you are! My story has angered you. No wonder; I know what an effect the thing had on me! And only think, Njikitjin had the shamelessness to speak to me this evening as we left the theatre. She wishes to visit me; what do you say to that?"
"She dare not cross my threshold," burst out Nita, with flashing eyes. "That is what I say."
"When did you, then, learn to know her?" asks Sonia, confidentially.
"I? As a very young girl in Vienna. I visited her then for a short time," says Nita, tonelessly.