But poor Jerry!  Had I not been so anxious lest a scene should burst upon us all I could have laughed at the humour of it.  Vera’s attitude was a complete surprise to him.  He had not seen her during the preceding week, and that absence from her had heightened his desire until it burnt his very throat with its flame.  One glance from her, when he came in, would have contented him.  He could have rested then, happily, quietly; but instead of that glance she had avoided his eye, her hand was cold and touched his only for an instant.  She had not spoken to him again after the first greeting.  I am sure that he had never known a time when his feelings threatened to be too much for him.  His hold on himself and his emotions had been complete.  “These fellers,” he once said to me about some Russians, “are always letting their feelings overwhelm them—­like women.  And they like it.  Funny thing!” Well, funny or no, he realised it now; his true education, like Nina’s, like Vera’s, like Bohun’s, like Markovitch’s, perhaps like my own, was only now beginning.  Funny and pathetic, too, to watch his broad, red, genial face struggling to express a polite interest in the conversation, to show nothing but friendliness and courtesy.  His eyes were as restless as minnows; they darted for an instant towards Vera, then darted off again, then flashed back.  His hand moved for a plate, and I saw that it was shaking.  Poor Jerry!  He had learnt what suffering was during those last weeks.  But the most silent of us all that evening was Markovitch.  He sat huddled over his food and never said a word.  If he looked up at all he glowered, and so soon as he had finished eating he returned to his workshop, closing the door behind him.  I caught Semyonov looking at him with a pleasant, speculative smile....

At last Vera, Nina, Lawrence, and I started for the theatre.  I can’t say that I was expecting a very pleasant evening, but the deathlike stillness, both of ourselves and the town did, I confess, startle me.  Scarcely a word was exchanged by us between the English Prospect and Saint Isaac’s Square.  The square looked lovely in the bright moonlight, and I said something about it.  It was indeed very fine, the cathedral like a hovering purple cloud, the old sentry in his high peaked hat, the black statue, and the blue shadows over the snow.  It was then that Lawrence, with an air of determined strength, detached Vera from us and walked ahead with her.  I saw that he was talking eagerly to her.

Nina said, with a little shudder, “Isn’t it quiet, Durdles?  As though there were ghosts round every corner.”

“Hope you enjoyed your walk this afternoon,” I said.

“No, it was quiet then.  But not like it is now.  Let’s walk faster and catch the others up.  Do you believe in ghosts, Durdles?”

“Yes, I think I do.”

“So do I. Was it true, do you think, about the people being shot at the Nicholas Station to-day?”