Irina was only seventeen, and as beautiful as the dawn.  Her thick fair hair was mingled with darker tresses; the languid curves of her lovely neck, and her smile—­half indifferent, half weary—­betrayed the nervous temperament of a delicate girl; but in the lines of those fine, faintly smiling lips there was something wilful and passionate, something dangerous to herself and others.  Her dark grey eyes, with shining lashes and bold sweep of eyebrow, had a strange look in them; they seemed looking out intently and thoughtfully—­looking out from some unknown depth and distance.  Litvinov fell in love with Irina from the moment he saw her (he was only three years older than she was), but for a long while he failed to obtain not only a response, but even a hearing.  She treated him with hostility, and the more he showed his love, the greater was her coldness, the more malignant her indifference.  She tortured him in this way for two months.  Then everything was transformed in one day.

Worn out by this cold torture, Litvinov was one night about to depart in despair.  Without saying good-bye, he began to look for his hat.  “Stay,” sounded suddenly in a soft whisper.  With throbbing heart he looked round, hardly believing his ears.  Before him he saw Irina, transformed.  “Stay,” she repeated; “don’t go.  I want to be with you.”

From that moment of the discovery of her love, Irina was changed.  She, who before had been proud and cruel, became at once as docile as a lamb, as soft as silk, and boundlessly kind.

“Ah, love me, love me, my sweet, my saviour,” she would whisper to him, with her arms about his neck.

In this new dream of happiness the days flew, the weeks passed; the future came ever nearer with the glorious hope of their happiness, and then, suddenly, an event occurred which scattered all their dreams and plans like light roadside dust.  The Court came to Moscow, and the Osinins, despite their poverty, determined to attend the customary great ball in the Hall of Nobility.  At first Irina resolutely refused to go, and Litvinov was called in by the prince to use his persuasion.

“Very well, then, I will go,” she said, when she had listened to his arguments; “only remember, it is you yourself who desired it.”

She spoke so strangely that he feared he had offended her.

“Irina, darling, you seem to be angry.”

Irina laughed.

“Oh, no!  I am not angry.  Only, Grisha...” (She fastened her eyes on him, and he thought he had never before seen such an expression in them.) “Perhaps it must be,” she added, in an undertone.

“But, Irina, you love me, dear?”

“I love you,” she answered, with almost solemn gravity, and she clasped his hand firmly like a man.