She stopped short, slightly blushing, and drew herself up.

'This is a very pleasant meeting,' she continued now in French. 'Let me introduce you to my husband. _Valerien, Monsieur Litvinov, un ami d'enfance_; Valerian Vladimirovitch Ratmirov, my husband.'

One of the young generals, almost the most elegant of all, got up from his seat, and with excessive courtesy bowed to Litvinov, while the rest of his companions faintly knitted their brows, or rather each of them withdrew for an instant into himself, as though protesting betimes against any contact with an extraneous civilian, and the other ladies taking part in the picnic thought fit to screw up their eyes a little and simper, and even to a.s.sume an air of perplexity.

'Have you--er--been long in Baden?' asked General Ratmirov, with a dandified air utterly un-Russian. He obviously did not know what to talk about with the friend of his wife's childhood.

'No, not long!' replied Litvinov.

'And do you intend to stay long?' pursued the polite general.

'I have not made up my mind yet.'

'Ah! that is very delightful ... very.'

The general paused. Litvinov, too, was speechless. Both held their hats in their hands and bending forward with a grin, gazed at the top of each other's heads.

'_Deux gendarmes un beau dimanche_,' began humming--out of tune of course, we have never come across a Russian n.o.bleman who did not sing out of tune--a dull-eyed and yellow-faced general, with an expression of constant irritability on his face, as though he could not forgive himself for his own appearance. Among all his companions he alone had not the complexion of a rose.

'But why don't you sit down, Grigory Mihalitch,' observed Irina at last.

Litvinov obeyed and sat down.

'_I say, Valerien, give me some fire_,' remarked in English another general, also young, but already stout, with fixed eyes which seemed staring into the air, and thick silky whiskers, into which he slowly plunged his snow-white fingers. Ratmirov gave him a silver matchbox.

'_Avez vous des papiros?_' asked one of the ladies, with a lisp.

'_De vrais papelitos, comtesse._'

'_Deux gendarmes un beau dimanche_,' the dull-eyed general hummed again, with intense exasperation.

'You must be sure to come and see us,' Irina was saying to Litvinov meantime; 'we are staying at the Hotel de l'Europe. From four to six I am always at home. We have not seen each other for such a long time.'

Litvinov looked at Irina; she did not drop her eyes.

'Yes, Irina Pavlovna, it is a long time--ever since we were at Moscow.'

'At Moscow, yes, at Moscow,' she repeated abruptly. 'Come and see me, we will talk and recall old times. Do you know, Grigory Mihalitch, you have not changed much.'

'Really? But you have changed, Irina Pavlovna.'

'I have grown older.'

'No, I did not mean that.'

'_Irene?_' said a lady in a yellow hat and with yellow hair in an interrogative voice after some preliminary whispering and giggling with the officer sitting near her. '_Irene?_'

'I am older,' pursued Irina, without answering the lady, 'but I am not changed. No, no, I am changed in nothing.'

'_Deux gendarmes un beau dimanche!_' was heard again. The irritable general only remembered the first line of the well-known ditty.

'It still p.r.i.c.ks a little, your excellency,' observed the stout general with the whiskers, with a loud and broad intonation, apparently quoting from some amusing story, well-known to the whole _beau monde_, and, with a short wooden laugh he again fell to staring into the air. All the rest of the party laughed too.

'What a sad dog you are, Boris!' observed Ratmirov in an undertone. He spoke in English and p.r.o.nounced even the name 'Boris' as if it were English.

'_Irene?_' the lady in the yellow hat said inquiringly for the third time. Irina turned sharply round to her.

'_Eh bien? quoi? que me voulez-vous?_'

'_Je vous dirai plus tard_,' replied the lady, mincing. With a very unattractive exterior, she was for ever mincing and grimacing. Some wit said of her that she '_minaudait dans le vide_,' 'grimaced upon the desert air.'

Irina frowned and shrugged her shoulders impatiently. '_Mais que fait donc Monsieur Verdier? Pourquoi ne vient-il pas?_' cried one lady with that prolonged drawl which is the peculiarity of the Great Russian accent, and is so insupportable to French ears.

'Ah, voo, ah, voo, mossoo Verdew, mossoo Verdew,' sighed another lady, whose birthplace was Arzama.s.s.

'_Tranquillisez-vous, mesdames_,' interposed Ratmirov. '_Monsieur Verdier m'a promis de venir se mettre a vos pieds._'

'He, he, he!'--The ladies fluttered their fans.

The waiter brought some gla.s.ses of beer.

'_Baierisch-Bier?_' inquired the general with whiskers, a.s.suming a ba.s.s voice, and affecting astonishment--'_Guten Morgen._'

'Well? Is Count Pavel still there?' one young general inquired coldly and listlessly of another.

'Yes,' replied the other equally coldly, '_Mais c'est provisoire_.

_Serge_, they say, will be put in his place.'

'Aha!' filtered the first through his teeth.

'Ah, yes,' filtered the second.

'I can't understand,' began the general who had hummed the song, 'I can't understand what induced Paul to defend himself--to bring forward all sorts of reasons. Certainly, he crushed the merchant pretty well, _il lui a fait rendre gorge_ ... well, and what of it? He may have had his own motives.'

'He was afraid ... of being shown up in the newspapers,' muttered some one.

The irritable general grew hot.

'Well, it is too much! Newspapers! Shown up! If it depended on me, I would not let anything be printed in those papers but the taxes on meat or bread, and announcements of sales of boots or furs.'

'And gentlemen's properties up for auction,' put in Ratmirov.

'Possibly under present circ.u.mstances.... What a conversation, though, in Baden _au Vieux-Chateau_.'

'_Mais pas du tout! pas du tout!_' replied the lady in the yellow hat, '_j'adore les questions politiques_.'

'_Madame a raison_,' interposed another general with an exceedingly pleasant and girlish-looking face. 'Why should we avoid those questions ... even in Baden?'