"Ah, so!" calls out Lensky, amused at the immoderateness of the young woman. "But if they would not let you into hell?"
"I would pay a few sins for admittance." And looking at him boldly from half-closed eyes, she takes a flower from the bouquet on her breast, and throws it across the table at him. He catches it laughingly. Suddenly he feels something strange. His daughter's eyes rest upon him, astonished, surprised. With a gesture of anger, he throws the flower under the table. "Nikolai, I beg you, take the child home," says he, springing up.
"Where, father?"
"Where?" repeats Lensky. "Why, to the Jeliagin--anywhere, only away from here."
"Will you permit me to take your daughter to Princess Jeliagin's? My carriage waits below. I have room for her and Monsieur Nikolas," says the Countess d'Olbreuse.
"I am very much obliged to you, Countess," replied Lensky. Then, dismissing Mascha with a kiss on the forehead, he turns to his guests. "I think we can go in the drawing-room; coffee is waiting already."
Still, while Mascha, quite amazed at her father's sudden unfriendliness, slips into her sable-lined velvet coat, Lensky comes up to his two children. "See that she is well wrapped up, Colia," says he to his son. "She is very delicate, and takes cold easily. She is, indeed, thoroughly like me, but still in much she is like her mother. God, those eyes! And say a good word for her to Barbara; see that she is not too harshly received."
"We will both defend her," says Countess d'Olbreuse kindly. "I understand that an anxious papa is frightened at such a mad prank, but one must be very hard-hearted not to pardon it."
"Ah, you have no idea what is before me! Aunt Barbara is not bad, she even likes me; but her daughter, my Cousin Anna, is terrible!" says Mascha "Why do you send me away, papa? I hoped that you would keep me with you."
"It is impossible," says he, with a short, characteristic motion of the head and shoulders, and with a gloomy decision which permits no objecting.