Nikolai starts. He seems to himself impolite in his silence to his father. He should have said a few words to him upon his success.
"To-day was an inspiration, father," he remarks, while he hands the virtuoso his match-box.
"There was a great noise, at any rate," says Lensky, and shrugs his shoulders. "That does not mean much. I beg you! A success is always like an epidemic or a conflagration. No one really knows why. Sometimes one achieves it, and not at other times. Apropos, some one fainted to-day. Who was it? An old woman, was it not?"
"No; a young girl."
"Was she pretty?"
"She pleased me."
"H-m! h-m! And she fainted because she was too tightly laced?"
"No, father. She evidently fainted from excitement. I have never seen any one listen as she listened to you."
"Swooned from excitement," repeats Lensky. "A pretty young woman! Mais c'est un succès de Torreador--the highest that a man can attain."
The carriage stops before the Hotel Westminster.