At any rate, upon this Sunday, she was sure of her afternoon.  Her eyes were wild with excitement.  Any one who looked at her closely must have noticed her strangeness, but they were all discussing the events of the last two days; there were a thousand stories, nearly all of them false and a few; true facts.

No one in reality knew anything except that there had been some demonstrations, a little shooting, and a number of excited speeches.  The town on that lovely winter morning seemed absolutely quiet.

Somewhere about mid-day Semyonov came in, and without thinking about it Nina suddenly found herself sitting in the window talking to him.  This conversation, which was in its results to have an important influence on her whole life, continued the development which that eventful Sunday was to effect in her.  Its importance lay very largely in the fact that her uncle had never spoken to her seriously like a grown-up woman before.  Semyonov was, of course, quite clever enough to realise the change which was transforming her, and he seized it, at once, for his own advantage.  She, on her side, had always, ever since she could remember, been intrigued by him.  She told me once that almost her earliest memory was being lifted into the air by her uncle and feeling the thick solid strength of his grasp, so that she was like a feather in the air, poised on one of his stubborn fingers; when he kissed her each hair of his beard seemed like a pale, taut wire, so stiff and resolute was it.  Her Uncle Ivan was a flabby, effeminate creature in comparison.  Then, as she had grown older, she had realised that he was a dangerous man, dangerous to women, who loved and feared and hated him.  Vera said that he had great power over them and made them miserable, and that he was, therefore, a bad, wicked man.  But this only served to make him, in Nina’s eyes, the more a romantic figure.

However, he had never treated her in the least seriously, had tossed her in the air spiritually just as he had done physically when she was a baby, had given her chocolates, taken her once or twice to the cinema, laughed at her, and, she felt, deeply despised her.  Then came the war and he had gone to the Front, and she had almost forgotten him.  Then came the romantic story of his being deeply in love with a nurse who had been killed, that he was heartbroken and inconsolable and a changed man.  Was it wonderful that on his return to Petrograd she should feel again that old Byronic (every Russian is still brought up on Byron) romance?  She did not like him, but—­well—­Vera was a staid old-fashioned thing....  Perhaps they all misjudged him; perhaps he really needed comfort and consolation.  He certainly seemed kinder than he used to be.  But, until to-day, he had never talked to her seriously.

How her heart leapt into her throat when he began, at once, in his quiet soft voice,

“Well, Nina dear, tell me all about it.  I know, so you needn’t be frightened.  I know and I understand.”