I do not know exactly what occurred during that afternoon.  Neither Lawrence nor Nina spoke about it to me.  I only know that Nina returned subdued and restrained.  I can imagine them going out into that quiet town and walking along the deserted quay; the quiet that afternoon was, I remember, marvellous.  The whole world was holding its breath.  Great events were occurring, but we were removed from them all.  The ice quivered under the sun and the snowclouds rose higher and higher into the blue, and once and again a bell chimed and jangled....  There was an amazing peace.  Through this peaceful world Nina and Lawrence walked.  His mind must, I know, have been very far away from Nina, probably he saw nothing of her little attempts at friendship; her gasping sentences that seemed to her so daring and significant he scarcely heard.  His only concern was to endure the walk as politely as possible and return to Vera.

Perhaps if she had not had that conversation with her uncle she would have realised more clearly how slight a response was made to her, but she thought only that this was his English shyness and gaucherie—­she must go slowly and carefully.  He was not like a Russian.  She must not frighten him.  Ah, how she loved him as she walked beside him, seeing and not seeing the lovely frozen colours of the winter day, the quickly flooding saffron sky!  The first bright star, the great pearl-grey cloud of the Neva as it was swept into the dark.  In the dark she put, I am sure, her hand on his arm, and felt his strength and took her small hurried steps beside his long ones.  He did not, I expect, feel her hand on his sleeve at all.  It was Vera whom he saw through the dusk.  Vera watching the door for his return, knowing that his eyes would rush to hers, that every beat of his heart was for her....

I found them all seated at dinner when I entered.  I brought them the news of the shooting up at the Nicholas Station.

“Perhaps, we had better not go to the theatre,” I said.  “A number of people were killed this afternoon, and all the trams are stopped.”

Still it was all remote from us.  They laughed at the idea of not going to the theatre.  The tickets had been bought two weeks ago, and the walk would be pleasant.  Of course we would go.  It would be fun, too, to see whether anything were happening.

With how strange a clarity I remember the events of that evening.  It is detached and hangs by itself among the other events of that amazing time, as though it had been framed and separated for some especial purpose.  My impression of the colour of it now is of a scene intensely quiet.

I saw at once on my arrival that Vera was not yet prepared to receive me back into her friendship.  And I saw, too, that she included Lawrence in this ostracism.  She sat there, stiff and cold, smiling and talking simply because she was compelled, for politeness sake, to do so.  She would scarcely speak to me at all, and when I saw this I turned and devoted myself to Uncle Ivan, who was always delighted to make me a testing-ground for his English.