At this moment Sarudine came back. He sat down next to Volochine and asked questions about St. Petersburg, and also about the latter's factory, so as to let the others know what a very wealthy and important person his visitor was. The handsome face of this st.u.r.dy animal now wore an expression of petty vanity and self-importance.

"Everything's the same with us, just the same!" replied Volochine, in a bored tone of voice. "How is it with you?"

"Oh! I'm just vegetating," said Sarudine with a mournful sigh.

Volochine was silent, and looked up disdainfully at the ceiling where the green reflections from the garden wavered.

"Our one and only amus.e.m.e.nt is this," continued Sarudine, as with a gesture he indicated the cards, the bottles, and his guests.

"Yes, yes!" drawled Volochine; to Sarudine his tone seemed to say, "and you're no better, either."

"I think I must be going now. I'm staying at the hotel on the boulevard. I may see you again!" Volochine rose to take his leave.

At this moment the orderly entered and saluting in slovenly fashion, said,

"The young lady is there, sir."

Sarudine started. "What?" he cried.

"She has come, sir."

"Ah I yes, I know," said Sarudine. He glanced about him nervously, feeling a sudden presentiment.

"I wonder if it's Lida?" he thought. "Impossible!"

Volochine's inquisitive eyes twinkled. His puny little body in its loose white clothes seemed to acquire new vitality.

"Well, good-bye!" he said, laughing. "Up to your old tricks, as usual!

Ha! Ha!"

Sarudine smiled uneasily, as he accompanied his visitor to the door, and with a parting stare the latter in his immaculate shoes hurried off.

"Now, sirs," said Sarudine, on his return, "how's the game going? Take the bank for me, will you, Tanaroff? I shall be back directly." He spoke hastily; his eyes were restless.

"That's a lie!" growled the drunken, b.e.s.t.i.a.l Malinowsky. "We mean to have a good look at that young lady of yours."

Tanaroff seized him by the shoulders and forced him back into his chair. The others hurriedly resumed their places at the card-table, not looking at Sarudine. Sanine also sat down, but there was a certain seriousness in his smile. He had guessed that it was Lida who had come, and a vague sense of jealousy and pity was roused within him for his handsome sister, now obviously in great distress.

CHAPTER XVII.

Sideways, on Sarudine's bed, sat Lida, in despair, convulsively twisting her handkerchief. As he came in he was struck by her altered appearance. Of the proud, high-spirited girl there was not a trace. He now saw before him a dejected woman, broken by grief, with sunken cheeks and lifeless eyes. These dark eyes instantly met his, and then as swiftly shunned his gaze. Instinctively he knew that Lida feared him, and a feeling of intense irritation suddenly arose within him.

Closing the door with a bang, he walked straight up to her.

"You really are a most extraordinary person," he began, with difficulty checking his fierce wish to strike her. "Here am I, with a room full of people; your brother's there, too! Couldn't you have chosen some other time to come? Upon my word, it is too provoking!"

From the dark eyes there shot such a strange flash that Sarudine quailed. His tone changed. He smiled, showing his white teeth, and taking Lida's hand, sat down beside her on the bed.

"Well, well, it doesn't matter. I was only anxious on your account. I am ever so glad that you've come. I was longing to see you."

Sarudine raised her hot, perfumed little hand to his lips, and kissed it just above the glove.

"Is that the truth?" asked Lida. The curious tone of her voice surprised him. Again she looked up at him, and her eyes said plainly, "Is it true that you love me? You see how wretched I am, now. Not like I was once. I am afraid of you, and I feel all the humiliation of my present state, but I have no one except you that can help me."

"How can you doubt it?" replied Sarudine. The words sounded insincere, almost cold.

Again he took her hand and kissed it. He was entangled in a strange coil of sensations and of thoughts. Only two days ago on this very pillow had lain the dark tresses of Lida's dishevelled hair as he held her in his arms and their lips had met in a frenzy of pa.s.sion uncontrolled. In that moment of desire the whole world and all his countless sensuous schemes of enjoyment with other women seemed realized and attained; the desire in deliberate and brutal fashion deeply to wrong this nature placed by pa.s.sion within his power. And now, all at once, his feeling for her was one of loathing. He would have liked to thrust her from him; he wished never to see her or hear her again. So overpowering was this desire, that to sit beside her became positive torture. At the same time a vague dread of her deprived him of will-power and forced him to remain. He was perfectly aware that there was nothing whatever to bind him to her, and that it was with her own consent that he had possessed her, without any promise on his part.

Each had given just as each had taken. Nevertheless he felt as if caught in some sticky substance from which he could not free himself.

He foresaw that Lida would make some claim upon him, and that he must either consent, or else commit a base, vile act. He appeared to be as utterly powerless as if the bones had been removed from his legs and arms, and as if, instead of a tongue in his mouth, there were a moist rag. He wanted to shout at her, and let her know once for all that she had no right to ask anything of him, but his heart was benumbed by craven fear, and to his lips there rose a senseless phrase which he knew to be absolutely unfitting.

"Oh! women, women!"

Lida looked at him in horror. A pitiless light seemed to flash across her mind. In one instant she realized that she was lost. What she had given that was n.o.ble and pure, she had given to a man that did not exist. Her fair young life, her purity, her pride, had all been flung at the feet of a base, cowardly brute who instead of being grateful to her had merely soiled her by acts of coa.r.s.e lubricity. For a moment she felt ready to wring her hands and fall to the ground in an agony of despair, but lightning-swift her mood changed to one of revenge and bitter hatred.

"Can't you really see how intensely stupid you are?" she hissed through her clenched teeth, as she looked straight into his eyes.

The insolent words and the look of hatred were so unsuited to Lida, gracious, feminine Lida, that Sarudine instinctively recoiled. He had not quite understood their import, and sought to pa.s.s them by with a jest.

"What words to use!" he said, surprised and annoyed.

"I'm not in a mood to choose my words," replied Lida bitterly, as she wrung her hands. Sarudine frowned.

"Why all these tragic airs?" he asked. Unconsciously allured by their beauty of outline, he glanced at her soft shoulders and exquisitely moulded arms. Her gesture of helplessness and despair made him feel sure of his superiority. It was as if they were being weighed in scales, one sinking when the other rose. Sarudine felt a cruel pleasure in knowing that this girl whom instinctively he had considered superior to himself was now made to suffer through him. In the first stage of their intimacy he had feared her. Now she had been brought to shame and dishonour; at which he was glad.

He grew softer. Gently he took her strengthless hands in his, and drew her closer to him. His senses were roused; his breath came quicker.

"Never mind! It'll be all right! There is nothing so dreadful about it, after all!"

"So you think, eh?" replied Lida scornfully. It was scorn that helped her to recover herself, and she gazed at him with strange intensity.

"Why, of course I do," said Sarudine, attempting to embrace her in a way that he knew to be effective. But she remained cold and lifeless.

"Come, now, why are you so cross, my pretty one?" he murmured in a gentle tone of reproof.

"Let me go! Let me go, I say!" exclaimed Lida, as she shook him off.

Sarudine felt physically hurt that his pa.s.sion should have been roused in vain.

"Women are the very devil!" he thought.

"What's the matter with you?" he asked testily, and his face flushed.

As if the question had brought something to her mind, she suddenly covered her face with both hands and burst into tears. She wept just as peasant-women weep, sobbing loudly, her face buried in her hands, her body being bent forward, while her dishevelled hair drooped over her wet, distorted countenance. Sarudine was utterly nonplussed. He smiled, though yet afraid that this might give offence, and tried to pull away her hands from her face. Lida stubbornly resisted, weeping all the while.

"Oh! my G.o.d!" he exclaimed. He longed to shout at her, to wrench her hands aside, to call her hard names,

"What are you whining for like this? You've gone wrong with me, worse luck, and there it is! Why all this weeping just to-day? For heaven's sake, stop!" Speaking thus roughly, he caught hold of her hand.