“Nadia.”
“Mine is Bertram Pollard.”
She asked him to repeat it, and said, “I shall remember. It is very English.”
“You were angry with me when I looked at you in the market-place,” said Bertram.
“No, not angry. Ashamed. That was foolish. There should be no pride left in Russia. We are all on the same level now.”
He wanted to talk with her, but she seemed uneasy lest they should be seen together, and slipped away from him among the crowds of peasants in the market-place.
That evening, before seven o’clock, he stood at the corner of the Arbat, by the burnt ruins of some houses. His feet were deep in snow, and heavy flakes were falling. He stamped up and down to keep his feet warm, until presently a woman’s figure, snow-covered, with a fur cap tied under the chin, stood beside him.
“Good evening,” she said in English. “You are a little early, I think.”
“And you also, mademoiselle.
“I was so afraid of keeping you waiting in the snow.”