"Oh, you little wretch!" admonishes Lensky, tenderly, while Nikolai calls to him across the table: "Don't give her any champagne; she cannot stand it. A thimbleful goes to her head."
"And I like it so much," sighs the girl.
"Tell us, please, how you really came here, Mascha," Lensky asks his daughter in French. "I thought you still in Arcachon."
"I ran away," says she, gayly, and laughs till her white teeth show between her full child's lips. "Ran away secretly, and quite alone!"
"So, well, that is good," says Lensky, and immediately is vexed at having made an unsuitable remark before his daughter. He adds: "You at least took your maid with you?"
"No, papa, no one. Ah! please do not look so gloomy; only do not be angry. If you must quarrel with me, quarrel to-morrow, but not to-day; I am too happy to be with you. See, it was this way: Since October, I have been with Aunt Sophie in Arcachon, because Aunt Barbara has not yet arranged her house in Paris, and therefore cannot take me. Ah! I must always go from one aunt to another, because you will not have me with you, you naughty papa!"
At this jesting reproof Lensky's face darkens; meanwhile, the girl continues: "All at once I heard you were in Paris. Ah! to know you were in Paris and not dare to come--that was unbearable. But, however, I begged.... 'It is impossible,' was the answer every time. Aunt Barbara could not receive me before the fifteenth, and then, besides, no one had time to accompany me to Paris--and all sorts of simple excuses, which made me furious. Meanwhile, I read in the papers how people half kill each other for places at your concerts, how all Paris is on its knees before you, and I am happy and proud of you."
"Ah! you are proud of me?" says Lensky, in a tone which among all those present only his son understands.
"But, papa," says Mascha, shrugging her shoulders impatiently at this interruption, "am I proud? How can you ask? Yes, immensely proud of you. But then I read that you look pale and weary; then I am quite consumed with anxiety, and dream every night that you are ill. Then yesterday evening I read that you had had a stroke of apoplexy. I was beside myself. They tried to talk me out of my anxiety, to convince me that if you were dangerously ill they would certainly have already telegraphed me. They were all very kind, and wished to telegraph to you, but I could not sit there idle for hours, waiting for a telegram. And so I ran away at six o'clock in the morning while every one was asleep. It was bitterly cold. I sold my watch, and then did not have money enough to buy my ticket; a young man was so kind as to assist me."
"Ah! an obliging young man," interrupted the journalist.