“Abramka is always ready to serve Mrs. Shaldin first,” said the tailor, though seized with a little pang, as if bitten by a guilty conscience.

“Are you sure you are telling the truth?  Is Abramka always to be depended upon?  Eh, is he?” She looked at him searchingly from beneath drooping lids.

“What a question,” rejoined Abramka.  His face quivered slightly.  His feeling of discomfort was waxing.  “Has Abramka ever—­”

“Oh, things can happen.  But, all right, never mind.  I brought a dress along with me.  I had to have it made in a great hurry, and there is just a little more to be done on it.  Now if I give you this dress to finish, can I be sure that you positively won’t tell another soul how it is made?”

“Mrs. Shaldin, oh, Mrs. Shaldin,” said Abramka reproachfully.  Nevertheless, the expression of his face was not so reassuring as usual.

“You give me your word of honour?”

“Certainly!  My name isn’t Abramka Stiftik if I—­”

“Well, all right, I will trust you.  But be careful.  You know of whom you must be careful?”

“Who is that, Mrs. Shaldin?”

“Oh, you know very well whom I mean.  No, you needn’t put your hand on your heart.  She was here to see me yesterday and tried in every way she could to find out how my dress is made.  But she couldn’t get it out of me.”  Abramka sighed.  Mrs. Shaldin seemed to suspect his betrayal.  “I am right, am I not?  She has not had her dress made yet, has she?  She waited to see my dress, didn’t she?  And she told you to copy the style, didn’t she?” Mrs, Shaldin asked with honest naivete.  “But I warn you, Abramka, if you give away the least little thing about my dress, then all is over between you and me.  Remember that.”

Abramka’s hand went to his heart again, and the gesture carried the same sense of conviction as of old.

“Mrs. Shaldin, how can you speak like that?”

“Wait a moment.”

Mrs. Shaldin left the room.  About ten minutes passed during which Abramka had plenty of time to reflect.  How could he have given the captain’s wife a promise like that so lightly?  What was the captain’s wife to him as compared with the doctor’s wife?  Mrs. Zarubkin had never given him a really decent order—­just a few things for the house and some mending.  Supposing he were now to perform this great service for her, would that mean that he could depend upon her for the future?  Was any woman to be depended upon?  She would wear this dress out and go back to ordering her clothes from Moscow again.  But Mrs. Shaldin, she was very different.  He could forgive her having brought this one dress along from abroad.  What woman in Russia would have refrained, when abroad, from buying a new dress?  Mrs. Shaldin would continue to be his steady customer all the same.

The door opened.  Abramka rose involuntarily, and clasped his hands in astonishment.