Varvara slowly looked up at Maria Dmitrievna, and gracefully clasped her hands together.

“You would be my saviour, ma tante,” she said, with a sad voice.  “I don’t know how to thank you properly for all your kindness; but I am too guilty before Fedor Ivanovich.  He cannot forgive me.”

“But did you actually—­in reality—?” began Maria Dmitrievna, with lively curiosity.

“Do not ask me,” said Varvara, interrupting her, and then looked down.  “I was young, light headed—­However, I don’t wish to make excuses for myself.”

“Well, in spite of all that, why not make the attempt?  Don’t give way to despair,” replied Maria Dmitrievna, and was going to tap her on the cheek, but looked at her, and was afraid.  “She is modest and discreet,” she thought, “but, for all that, a lionne still!”

“Are you unwell?” asked Panshine, meanwhile.

“I am not quite well,” replied Liza.

“I understand,” he said, after rather a long silence, “Yes, I understand.”

“What do you mean?”

“I understand,” significantly repeated Panshine, who simply was at a loss for something to say.

Liza felt confused, but then she thought, “What does it matter?”

Meanwhile Panshine assumed an air of mystery and maintained silence, looking in a different direction with a grave expression on his face.

“Why I fancy it must be past eleven!” observed Maria Dmitrievna.  Her guests understood the hint and began to take leave.  Varvara was obliged to promise to come and dine to-morrow, and to bring Ada with her.  Gedeonovsky, who had all but gone to sleep as he sat in a corner, offered to escort her home.  Panshine bowed gravely to all the party; afterwards, as he stood on the steps after seeing Varvara into her carriage, he gave her hand a gentle pressure, and exclaimed, as she drove away, “Au revoir!” Gedeonovsky sat by her side in the carriage, and all the way home she amused herself by putting the tip of her little foot, as if by accident, on his foot.  He felt abashed, and tried to make her complimentary speeches.  She tittered, and made eyes at him when the light from the street lamps shone Into the carriage.  The waltz she had played rang in her ears and excited her.  Wherever she might be she had only to imagine a ballroom and a blaze of light, and swift circling round to the sound of music, and her heart would burn within her, her eyes would glow with a strange lustre, a smile would wander around her lips, a kind of bacchanalian grace would seem to diffuse itself over her whole body.

When they arrived at her house Varvara lightly bounded from the carriage, as only a lionne could bound, turned towards Gedeonovsky, and suddenly burst out laughing in his face.

“A charming creature,” thought the councillor of state, as he made his way home to his lodgings, where his servant was waiting for him with a bottle of opodeldoc.  “It’s as well that I’m a steady man—­But why did she laugh?”