"Do you really need one? If I desire, and am able, to do something, I do it. That's my programme!"

"A fine one indeed!" exclaimed Schafroff hotly, Yourii merely shrugged his shoulders and made no reply.

For a while they all went on drinking in silence. Then Yourii turned to Sanine and proceeded to expound his views concerning the Supreme Good.

He intended Ivanoff to hear what he said, though he did not look at him. Schafroff listened with reverence and enthusiasm. While Ivanoff who had partly turned his back to Yourii received each new statement with a mocking "We've heard all that before!"

At last Sanine languidly interposed.

"Oh! do stop all this," he said. "Don't you find it terribly boring?

Every man is ent.i.tled to his own opinion, surely?"

He slowly lit a cigarette and went out into the courtyard. To his heated body the calm, blue night was deliciously soothing. Behind the wood the moon rose upward, like a globe of gold, shedding soft, strange light over the dark world. At the back of the orchard with its odour of apples and plums the other white-walled hospice could be dimly seen, and one of the lighted windows seemed to peer down at Sanine through its fence of tender leaves. Suddenly a sound was heard of naked feet pattering on the gra.s.s, and Sanine saw the figure of a boy emerge from the gloom.

"What do you want?" he asked.

"I want to see Mademoiselle Karsavina, the schoolteacher," replied the bare-footed urchin, in a shrill voice.

"Why?"

To Sanine the name instantly recalled a vision of Sina, standing at the water's edge in all her nude, sunlit loveliness.

"I have got a letter for her," said the boy.

"Aha! She must be at the hospice over the way, as she is not here. You had better go there."

The lad crept away, barefoot, like some little animal, disappearing so quickly in the darkness that it seemed as if he had hidden himself behind a bush.

Sanine slowly followed, breathing to the full the soft, honey-sweet air of the garden.

He went close up to the other hospice, so that the light from the window as he stood under it fell full upon his calm, pensive face, and illuminated large, heavy pears hanging on the dark orchard trees. By standing on tip-toe Sanine was able to pluck one, and, just as he did so he caught sight of Sina at the window.

He saw her in profile, clad in her night-dress. The light on her soft, round shoulders gave them a l.u.s.tre as of satin. She was lost in her thoughts, that seemingly made her joyous yet ashamed, for her eyelids quivered, and on her lips there was a smile. To Sanine it was like the ecstatic smile of a maiden ripe and ready for a long, entrancing kiss.

Riveted to the spot, he stood there and gazed.

She was musing on all that had just happened, and her experiences, if they had caused delight, had yet provoked shame. "Good heavens!"

thought she, "am I really so depraved?" Then for the hundredth time she blissfully recalled the rapture that was hers as she first lay in Yourii's arms. "My darling! My darling!" she murmured, and again Sanine watched her eyelids tremble, and her smiling lips. Of the subsequent scene, distressful in its unbridled pa.s.sion, she preferred not to think, instinctively aware that the memory of it would only bring disenchantment.

There was a knock at the door.

"Who is there?" asked Sina, looking up. Sanine plainly saw her white, soft neck.

"Here's a letter for you," cried the boy outside.

Sina rose and opened the door. Splashed with wet mud to the knees, the boy entered, and s.n.a.t.c.hing his cap from his head, said:

"The young lady sent me."

"Sinotschka," wrote Dubova, "if possible, do come back to town this evening. The Inspector of Schools has arrived, and will visit our school to-morrow morning. It won't look well if you are not there."

"What is it?" asked Sina's old aunt.

"Olga has sent for me. The school-inspector has come," replied Sina, pensively.

The boy rubbed one foot against another.

"She wished me to tell you to come back without fail," he said.

"Are you going?" asked the aunt.

"How can I? Alone, in the dark?"

"The moon is up," said the boy. "It's quite light out-of-doors."

"I shall have to go," said Sina, still hesitating.

"Yes, yes, go, my child. Otherwise there might be trouble."

"Very well, then, I'll go," said Sina, nodding her head resolutely.

She dressed quickly, put on her hat and took leave of her aunt.

"Good-bye, auntie,"

"Good-bye, my dear. G.o.d be with you."

Sina turned to the boy. "Are you coming with me?" The urchin looked shy and confused, as, again rubbing his feet together, he muttered, "I came to be with mother. She does washing here, for the monks."

"But how am I to go alone, Grischka?"

"All right! Let's go," replied the lad, in a tone of vigorous a.s.sent.

They went out into the dark-blue, fragrant night.

"What a delightful scent!" she exclaimed, immediately uttering a startled cry, for in the darkness she had stumbled against some one.

"It is I," said Sanine, laughing.

Sina held out her trembling hand.

"It's so dark that one can't see," she said, by way of excuse.

"Where are you going?"

"Back to the town. They've sent for me."

"What, alone?"

"No, the little boy's going with me. He's my cavalier."