“I am very sorry this has come up,” muttered the actor, getting up and rubbing something out of his left eye with his little finger.  “Though, of course . . . of course, you as her uncle . . .”

The other guests, who had hitherto been listening to the actor with pleasure and rewarding him with smiles, were embarrassed and dropped their eyes.

“Please, do be so good . . . take your words back . . .” said Klimov in extreme embarrassment.  “I beg you to do so!”

“If . . . er-er-er . . . it offends you, certainly,” answered the actor, with an undefined movement of his hand.

“And confess you have told a falsehood.”

“I, no . . . er-er-er. . . .  It was not a lie, but I greatly regret having spoken too freely. . . .  And, in fact . . .  I don’t understand your tone!”

Klimov walked up and down the room in silence, as though in uncertainty and hesitation.  His fleshy face grew more and more crimson, and the veins in his neck swelled up.  After walking up and down for about two minutes he went up to the actor and said in a tearful voice: 

“No, do be so good as to confess that you told a lie about Varenka!  Have the goodness to do so!”

“It’s queer,” said the actor, with a strained smile, shrugging his shoulders and swinging his leg.  “This is positively insulting!”

“So you will not confess it?”

“I do-on’t understand!”

“You will not?  In that case, excuse me . . .  I shall have to resort to unpleasant measures.  Either, sir, I shall insult you at once on the spot, or . . . if you are an honourable man, you will kindly accept my challenge to a duel. . . .  We will fight!”

“Certainly!” rapped out the jeune premier, with a contemptuous gesture.  “Certainly.”

Extremely perturbed, the guests and the host, not knowing what to do, drew Klimov aside and began begging him not to get up a scandal.  Astonished feminine countenances appeared in the doorway. . . .  The jeune premier turned round, said a few words, and with an air of being unable to remain in a house where he was insulted, took his cap and made off without saying good-bye.

On his way home the jeune premier smiled contemptuously and shrugged his shoulders, but when he reached his hotel room and stretched himself on his sofa he felt exceedingly uneasy.

“The devil take him!” he thought.  “A duel does not matter, he won’t kill me, but the trouble is the other fellows will hear of it, and they know perfectly well it was a yarn.  It’s abominable!  I shall be disgraced all over Russia. . . .”

Podzharov thought a little, smoked, and to calm himself went out into the street.

“I ought to talk to this bully, ram into his stupid noddle that he is a blockhead and a fool, and that I am not in the least afraid of him. . . .”

The jeune premier stopped before Zybaev’s house and looked at the windows.  Lights were still burning behind the muslin curtains and figures were moving about.