But at the door Barbara turns round. Her flabby, wrinkled, painted face twitches a little, and taking Maschenka's head between both hands she kisses the girl on the forehead.

"My good child!" murmurs she, "my dear good child, I am very sorry that you must pa.s.s your evening alone. We will try to come home soon."

"How you smell of benzine, mamma!" Maschenka hears Anna say, as they get into the carriage.

Maschenka had taken no further notice that the hands which had caressed her were incased in cleaned gloves. It was so lovely to be a little bit caressed.

Mascha has eaten her solitary dinner. Afterward she played a little, improvised all sorts of droll, charming nonsense. About ten o'clock--they have just brought the tea to her--she hears the house-door open. Have they returned already? No; that is a visitor, a well-known voice--he. How unpleasant, just to-day, when no one is at home! Then the maid--a new one who has been engaged for Mascha and works for Anna--opens the door. "Count Barenburg," she announces, with her insinuating, theatrical smile. "Does mademoiselle receive?"

Before she really knows what she does, Mascha says, "Yes."

Scarcely has she spoken the word when she would like to recall it. She knows that it is not permissible from a social standpoint for her to receive him, but for eight days she has longed so unspeakably to see him again, to thank him for the bear-skin, and then, why was Anna so hateful to her?

He enters, very handsome, very distinguished, very respectful. She forgets all the _traits d'esprit_ prepared for him, and as if paralyzed with shyness, she stammers:

"My aunt is not at home; had you perhaps a message for her which I can deliver?" And with a charmingly diffident gesture she stretches out her hand to him. He takes it in his, holds it a moment longer than is absolutely necessary.

"Do you find it absolutely necessary to send me away again?" asks he.

Ah! she feels so happy in his presence. "At least not before I have expressed my thanks for your gift," she stammers.

Braenburg, to whom it would be indescribably vexatious to be forced to break off his conversation with this strange, interesting little being, seeks some pretext to prolong his visit. His glance falls on the tea apparatus.

"Would your thankfulness go so far as to give me a cup of tea?" he remarks, and adds with genial inspiration: "Perhaps your aunt will return meanwhile."

"Yes; aunt said she would soon return," a.s.sured Mascha, gayly. The situation is justified; how happy she is to dare keep him there, were it only for a quarter of an hour.

She gives him his tea, he sits down in an arm-chair near the chimney opposite her. A deep silence follows. In vain does she try to find something suitable to the occasion in her carefully collected h.o.a.rd of intellectual anecdotes. At length she says simply: "It must have been a splendid bear."

"Yes," replied the count. "It also was Russian boldness to creep into the thicket after the beast. Poor Nikolai, how the brute had cornered him! Really, I owed him the skin; but as I know him, he is always ready to share the best of everything with his little sister."

"Yes; he spoils me very much," says Mascha, moved. "I shall miss him fearfully--fearfully. You know, perhaps, that he has left the city to-day. You cannot think how unpleasant it is for me to be so quite alone."

"Alone?" repeated he.

"That is--well, yes, I am with relatives," Mascha hastens to explain.

"Aunt is very good to me, but I cannot warm to my cousin; I do not like her. She is very beautiful, but intolerable. And you, Count Barenburg, how do you find Anna?"

"She has a very decorative effect," says he, dryly. "She reminds me of an aloe, she is so stiff and pointed. She would do very well on a terrace."

"I am only surprised that she has not yet married," remarks Mascha, very pleased at Barenburg's cool description of Anna's charms.

"I am not at all surprised," replies he. "I have often noticed that these acknowledged beauties usually marry very late. They are like the too beautiful apples on the dessert dishes, which remain because no one has the courage to reach for them. And then, finally, to kindle a flame one must have somewhere a spark about one; and your cousin is of ice."

"Yes, that is true," laughs Mascha; then, restraining herself, she adds: "But I really should not speak so of my nearest relatives to a stranger. I--I always forget that you are a stranger; you seem to me like--a friend."

He smiles at her, and says softly: "When I so soon feel such warm sympathy for any one as for you, it seems to me as if we had long been good friends in heaven, and had found each other again on the earth."

"Really?"

"Certainly," says he, earnestly. "I can distinctly remember our acquaintance up there. You were a lovely, gay, half-grown little angel, with short, unformed wings, with which you could not yet majestically sail about in the air, but only helplessly flutter a little. But every one loved you, and all the other angels were jealous of you. Then--now the affair becomes considerable; shall I go on?" he smilingly interrupts his improvisation.

"Oh, yes, yes, please," begs she. She looks charming, leaning back in the immense chair, with curious, friendly gay expression in the eyes fixed on him. "Yes, yes, please!" And unconsciously she makes a movement as if she would push the chair nearer the young man.

"Well," Barenburg continues, "one day the devil presented himself in Paradise and demanded you for himself. He said you were his property, and had only by chance got into Paradise. We did not want to give you up, but as it could not be agreed upon, it was decided to send you back to earth so that you might make a second decisive trial of life and show whose being you were. I was so frightfully bored without you that I hurried down to earth to seek you."

"How droll you are!" says Maschenka, laughing loudly and childishly, and again she makes a movement as if she would draw nearer to him. "And do you think that I will go back to heaven?"

"I hope so." Meanwhile the clock strikes--eleven.

Maschenka suddenly grows red. "How long aunt stays!" murmurs she, and rises.

Barenburg also rises. "I really cannot longer wait for the ladies,"

says he in an undertone, and gives her his hand. She sinks her head.

"I--I really should not have received you," stammers she with confusion.

"Why not?" says he, impatiently.

"No, I know it--but--" and suddenly raising her head, she looks at him from a pair of such wonderful, tearfully bright eyes that his senses swam--"but, I so longed to speak to some one who sympathizes with me a little," whispers she.

The whole pitiful neglect of the poor child dawns upon him, and a great compa.s.sion overcomes him. "You really need not fear being misunderstood by me," says he. "Oh! if you only had a suspicion of how lovely you are-- Good-night. And if you ever need a man who would go through fire for you, you know where to seek him."

He kisses her hand tenderly, pa.s.sionately, and goes.

Long after he has gone Maschenka stands on the same spot, frightened, paralyzed, and looks at her hand.

A little later she goes up to her room.

"Has mademoiselle amused herself well?" asks the maid, while she helps her undress. "I was so sorry that, mademoiselle must pa.s.s the evening alone. Naturally, I will say nothing of it to madame."

"And why not?" burst out Mascha, violently.

"Oh! as mademoiselle wishes. I only thought----"

"I shall tell aunt myself that Count Barenburg was here," says Mascha, defiantly. "And now go!"

In the midst of all her tender-heartedness she has fits of harsh, repellant roughness, which, like so much about her, are an inheritance from her father.

With loosened hair, half undressed, she sits before the fire, with her bare feet resting on the bear-skin. "Ah, it was lovely!" A great embarra.s.sment robs her of breath. Again she looks at her hand. "He loves me!" And suddenly an uneasiness, something like dissatisfaction, creeps over her. Why had he not immediately told her that he loved her?

Why had he not drawn her to his breast and kissed her?

She kneels down on the bear-skin, draws the s.h.a.ggy head of the beast to her breast, and kisses it on the forehead.

* * * * *

"Why are you so out of temper; is anything the matter?"

This question Karl Barenburg hears to annoyance in the days which follow his visit in the Avenue Wagram. And old friend even asked him: "Have you gambling debts? Confide in me."