"Oh! how can you touch the horrid thing?" says Mascha, holding her hands over her eyes, and tapping her foot. "Oh, oh!"
"Poor little thing, how she trembles!" says Nita, compassionately, while she goes up to Mascha. "Throw your stupid skull in the fire, Sophie. You see that the child cannot bear the sight of it."
"That is very foolish; one should be over that at seventeen. It is very hard to get skulls," replies Sophie, vexedly.
But Nita does not notice that. She has taken Mascha in her arms, and caresses her like a mother who would calm an excited child. "So, dear heart, the ugly thing is gone. You can open your pretty eyes. Poor little soul!"
"Fräulein von Sankjéwitch is very good to you," now calls a young man's voice.
Nita looks up and perceives Nikolai. Evidently the little beauty is his sister. He bows, and turning to Mascha once more, he says: "And now tell Fräulein von Sankjéwitch that you are sorry to have been so ill-bred."
Mascha has wiped the tears from her eyes; she looks at Nita touchingly, thankfully; then smiling, with the tender roguishness which adds so much to the charm of her little personality, she says: "I am not sorry. You would not have been so kind to me if I had been polite, would you?" And with that she lays her arm somewhat shyly around Nita's neck and presses her soft lips to the young artist's smooth cheeks. "I was beside myself," says she. "Ah! I am so afraid of death! If only there was no dying!"
"It is a peculiarity of hers. One must have a little patience with her in that direction," explains Nikolai.
"Give us some tea, Sophie. That will give the child something else to think of," says Nita, without noticing Nikolai's remark.
To-day, also, she is strikingly stiff and cold to him, so that he asks himself: "What has she against me?" Nevertheless, she warms somewhat in the course of conversation. The young man visibly gains ground with her.