Mascha nods defiantly.

"You are very inexperienced, my little Mascha," says Anna. "You always have such a hostile manner to me that it is unusually hard for me to--h-m! how shall I express myself?--give you the enlightenment which in a certain manner, as your relative, I owe you. You do not know men as I do, dear child."

"Have you had very sad experience in this direction, poor Anna?" sighs Mascha, compa.s.sionately.

"I have had no experience, but I have observed," says Anna. "Barenburg is a man from whom one must guard one's self. He has a new flame every moment, whom he overwhelms with the most poetic attentions until--one day he no longer greets her on the street. I am very sorry to diminish your pleasure, but I must warn you."

"H-m!" says Mascha, in the same tone of humorous impertinence; and copying Anna's glance with photographic exactness, she says: "My dear Anna, would you like very much to marry Count Barenburg yourself?

_Seniores, priores_--I withdraw."

"One cannot speak to you," says Anna, and rises, blushing with anger.

But Maschenka holds her back; her impertinence suddenly truly pains her. How indelicate it was to reproach Anna with her age! As if she could help it! "Anna," says she, cordially, "I did not mean badly; I only wanted to laugh. But tell me, I will not repeat it, do you like Count Barenburg? I will certainly not stand in your way."

Instead of being touched by this childish sacrifice, Anna stares arrogantly at her cousin from head to foot. "I can, perhaps, put up with your rivalry," says she. "Calm yourself, _moutarde apres diner, ma chere_! If I had wished to marry Barenburg, I could have had him this autumn in Spaa. He is as indifferent to me as that"--with a snap of her fingers. "But show me your hands; _comme vous avez les ongles canailles_. I always tell you you should not practise so much; you already have nails like a professional pianist--_c'est tres mal porte_."

* * * * *

The Jeliagins have paid Mascha a little attention. To-day, at lunch, she found on her plate a box-ticket for the Porte St. Martin. It has long been her most ardent wish to go to the theatre.

"You can invite Sonia and Fraulein von Sankjewitch. Nikolai will accompany you. It would be better that you dine with Fraulein von Sankjewitch," proposes her aunt, "if that suits you."

"Oh, it suits, naturally it suits!" cries Mascha, and springs up to embrace her aunt.

"Do not make so much of this trifle," says Madame Jeliagin, a trifle ashamed. "It is not worth the trouble. I rack my brains often enough to think how one can amuse you. But with girls like you, who are too old to play with dolls, too young to go into society, it is hard."

"Am I, then, really too young, auntie? I was seventeen the fifth of last December," says Mascha, looking longingly and coaxingly at Barbara.

Barbara Jeliagin is silent with embarra.s.sment, but Anna speaks. "Your age alone is not the thing. You have no _tenue_, are not sufficiently lady-like. You must accustom yourself to more repose and self-command before one can think of taking you into society without fearing to be embarra.s.sed by you."

This kind remark Mascha receives silently, but with burning cheeks.

Madame Jeliagin, who has learned quite against her will to love Mascha, perhaps because Mascha's obliging lovability is the only bit of sunshine which has warmed her for years, pats her kindly on the shoulder, and says: "It is not so dreadful. To be old and sedate is no art; that comes of itself."

And Mascha wipes the tears from her eyes, and again is happy over her ticket, inquires what she shall wear in honor of this festive occasion, and is only sorry that one visits the Porte St. Martin in street costume.

The box ticket is for the next evening. All arranges itself splendidly.

Nita and Sonia dine with the brother and sister in the Avenue Murillo.

The little dinner is excellent and Colia happy. But after the meal, when they are about to break up, Mascha notices that she has left her opera-gla.s.s at home. Great despair! Sonia has none, and Nita's is really not enough for three shortsighted persons. They decide to take the roundabout way through the Avenue Wagram and get the gla.s.s.

"I will come immediately; I will not keep you waiting a moment," says Mascha, gayly. But scarcely has she entered the hall when she perceives that something unusual is going on. The vestibule is brilliantly lighted, several ladies' wraps and men's overcoats are there. Mascha's large eyes become gloomy. "And I thought they wished to give me a pleasure," thinks she, angrily. "They only got me out of the way because they were ashamed of me." Then, turning to the servant who appears, she asks ruthlessly, directly:

"Who is dining here?"

"The Ladies Anthropos, Count Barenburg, Monsieur d'Eblis, Prince Trubetzkoy----"

But Maschenka hears no more. "Barenburg!" her pa.s.sionate heart beats loudly. "_Moutarde apres diner_ it may be; but, in any case, Anna seems not to so lowly estimate my insignificant youthfulness as rival, as she acts thus," thinks she to herself. "But we will see, Anna, we will see!" And Maschenka sets her teeth and clenches her tiny fist.

XV.

The next morning she makes a great scene for her aunt and cousin, reproaches them violently and with bitter tears for that she is unlovingly pushed about and repressed, that she plays the _role_ of a Cinderella in their house; that she cannot endure living with people who do not love her, etc.

Barbara Alexandrovna bows her head with shame at these reproofs. Anna, on the contrary, opposes the anger of her pa.s.sionate, excited cousin with icy calm.

"Before all," she begins, "I would beg to remark to you that we are not at all obliged to put up with your rudeness. I do not condescend to answer your ill-bred accusations, for I think without that you will be ashamed of them in a calmer frame of mind. But for the rest, I tell you very plainly, if life with us does not suit you, you can take refuge in a boarding-school."

If Mascha had possessed shrewdness enough to declare herself agreed with the plan of boarding-school, it would have placed the Jeliagins in great embarra.s.sment, on account of the pecuniary aid which they received from Mascha's stay with them. But she did not think of that. A boarding-school is for her something horrible--a prison, where she must give up all possibility of seeing Barenburg again. And so she submits, shyly, shame-facedly.

When they tell her that, for the third time this week, she is to dine alone, she takes it with such sad, helpless submission that it pains her aunt, and she proposes to ask Nikolai to share her solitary meal; perhaps he may be disengaged.

"Yes, that would be nice," says Mascha. And completely reconciled with her fate, she sends a message to her brother, forms the most delightful plans--then comes her brother's answer.

"Dear Heart:--Just received a despatch from Aunt Katherine. Uncle Sergei is ill, desires me urgently. I must leave by the 3.25 train.

Have not even time to take leave of you. Unfortunate for our cosey evening. G.o.d keep you, my little dove; be brave and prudent for love of me, and also for your own sake. Write me all that is on your heart, every little annoyance which weighs upon you. If you ever need immediate advice, go to Sonia and Fraulein von Sankjewitch, who both love you. I kiss and embrace you.

"Your faithful brother,

"Colia."

"Is there nothing but unpleasantness in the world?" sighs Mascha, upon receiving this note. "But still, what use to torment one's self?"

After she has devoted perhaps fifteen minutes to the deepest sorrow, she runs singing about the house, and makes gay little jokes.

Now it is evening, and they stand in the vestibule and await the carriage--Anna and aunt; Anna with her regal bearing and carelessly trailing draperies; Barbara with her nervous anxiety and scant, short dress.

"What lace is that around your neck?" calls out Anna, angrily, looking at her mother through her _lorgnon_. "Did you buy that fichu on the Campo dei Fiori? It is grotesque! You look like a stage mother."

Barbara pulls uneasily at her fichu and drops her purse.

"Wait, auntie, I have such wonderful lace of mamma's up-stairs," says Mascha, who until now has been sunk in childish admiration of Anna's ice-cold blond beauty and white _crepe de Chine_ splendor. "Only a moment, auntie, I will bring it immediately." And she rushes up-stairs and returns in a minute with sewing utensils and a box smelling of _Peau d'Espagne_. "See, you must put on this scarf, auntie."

"We will call the maid," proposes Madame Jeliagin.

"Ah, no! I will do it myself. You will be beautiful at once, now, auntie," says Mascha, while she removes the shabby ornament condemned by Anna and replaces it with splendid old point lace.

"See, so; mamma wore it so. No, not the old mosaic brooch; here, take my pin." And Mascha drags it from her neck. "Oh, how that becomes you!

Look in the gla.s.s, and see how pretty you are. Only a few st.i.tches to make it firm. Is it not nice so, Anna?"

"_Mais oui, tres bien_," Anna lets fall from her thin lips.

The servant announces the carriage. Madame Jeliagin becomes uneasy.

"Now we are ready." And Mascha springs up from the floor, where she has knelt to fasten one end of the lace to her aunt's girdle. Then the servant gives them their wraps, Anna's red embroidered one, another of the unpaid-for articles which her mother has begged from the dressmaker with tears, and Barbara's old-fashioned shabby mantle, and they go.