“For what?  I wronged you, though of course it was my fate, and I do not regret it.  You must tell me you forgive me, or else I shall imagine you feel... de la rancune.”

As he looked into her beautiful eyes, shining with tears, Litvinov’s senses seemed to swim.

“I will remember nothing,” he managed to say; “nothing but the happy moments for which I was once indebted to you.”

Irina held out both hands to him; Litvinov clasped them warmly, and did not at once let them go.  Something that long had not been secretly stirred in his heart at that soft contact....  They fell into conversation, he learning from her something of her life, she extracting from him in fragments the details of his career.  General Ratmirov’s arrival put an end to their converse, and Litvinov rose to depart.  At the door Irina stopped him.

“You have told me everything,” she said, “but the chief thing you have concealed.  You are going to be married, I am told.”

Litvinov blushed up to his ears.  As a fact, he had intentionally not referred to Tatyana.

“Yes, I am going to be married,” he said at last, and at once withdrew.

He came away, swearing to himself that he would never see her again.  Next day he met her on his way to the mountains, but pretended not to see her.  On his return he found her sitting alone on a bench in the fashionable walk.  She stopped him, insisting, with an unsteady voice, on speaking to him.  He tried to be frank with her, pointing out that their paths lay far apart, that she belonged to a society which he did not understand, that she was above him, beyond him.  But her passionate appeal that they should at least be friends melted his determination, and he left her with a promise to call again that very night.

When he returned once more to his rooms, he made a desperate effort to recover his senses.  Taking out a picture of Tatyana, he placed it in front of him, and stared at it long and eagerly.  Suddenly he pushed it gently away, and clutched his head in both hands.

“All is at an end,” he whispered at last.  “Irina!  Irina!”

He realised in an instant that he was irrevocably, senselessly, in love with her.

“But Tatyana, Tatyana, my guardian, Tatyana, Tatyana!” he repeated, while Irina’s shape, as he had seen her last, rose before his eyes with a radiant calm of victory on her marble-white face.

Next day he told her of his love.  For answer she threw her arms round his neck and whispered in his ear, “I love you, too....  I love you... and you know it.”

“You must go,” she went on suddenly, moving away from him and turning impulsively toward the door.  “It’s dangerous, it’s terrible....  Good-bye.”

Litvinov stood, like a block of wood, at a distance.  Once more she said, “Good-bye, forget me,” and, without looking round, rushed away.

As he left the hotel, like a man in a fog, he passed Ratmirov on the stairs.  The general lifted his hat unnecessarily high, and wished him a very good day in a voice which was obviously ironical.