“Let’s go in, Andrey Ivanovich.”

“What I haven’t seen there?” he answered, turning away. “Go,—kiss them. I think enough of myself not to do this, for I wear a cross.”

“So do we,” Ivan Ivanovich spoke with a mild tone of reproach.

Andrey Ivanovich whistled suspiciously, and then, with a serious look on his face, he called to me:

“Do you know this disreputable crowd?”

With an enigmatic glance at me, he added in a lower tone:

“Did you understand?”

“No, I didn’t. Good-bye. If you want to, wait for me.”

“We’ve nothing to wait for. Some people don’t understand....”