"How dear, how beautiful that you came!" says she, tenderly, and presses her lips to his hand.
"And did you think that I would go away without taking leave of you?" asked he.
She turns her head slightly away from him. "Ah! I did not know," murmured she. "How should I? Yesterday I no longer knew whether you really loved me. You were so busy with all those insolent women who swarmed around you. Ah! papa, how can you associate with that rabble?"
"That does not concern you at all," says he, looking at her quite harshly, while he this time, as his old custom was, conceals his embarrassment behind defiant obstinacy. Then he notices the significant traces of the difficultly vanquished sadness of the past night in the little childish face, and when Maschenka, frightened at her father's roughness, starts anxiously and shyly, the greatest anxiety overcomes him. "How pale you are, my angel; is anything the matter?"
"No, papa--no--only--I was ragingly unhappy yesterday, and then I dreamed so horribly."
"What then?"
"It was oppressive; and I was followed by a horrible monster, and when I called to you, you were busy with--with other strange men, and did not look round--and in my mortal fear I called to mother--in my dream I had forgotten that she is dead--and then I awoke."
"My poor little dove, my poor, orphaned little dove!" murmurs he. "Who can replace your mother to you? That was a fearful loss. There is no second mother like her."
For a while both are silent, then Mascha asks:
"How long shall you be away?"