At six o’clock he was waked up and summoned to dinner.

“How nice this is of Alexey!” his cousin’s wife greeted him in the dining-room.  “He keeps us waiting for dinner.”

“Do you mean to say he’s not come back yet?” yawned the lieutenant.  “H’m! . . . he’s probably gone round to see the tenant.”

But Alexey Ivanovitch was not back by supper either.  His wife and Sokolsky decided that he was playing cards at the tenant’s and would most likely stay the night there.  What had happened was not what they had supposed, however.

Kryukov returned next morning, and without greeting any one, without a word, dashed into his study.

“Well?” whispered the lieutenant, gazing at him round-eyed.

Kryukov waved his hand and gave a snort.

“Why, what’s the matter?  What are you laughing at?”

Kryukov flopped on the sofa, thrust his head in the pillow, and shook with suppressed laughter.  A minute later he got up, and looking at the surprised lieutenant, with his eyes full of tears from laughing, said: 

“Close the door.  Well . . . she is a fe-e-male, I beg to inform you!”

“Did you get the IOUs?”

Kryukov waved his hand and went off into a peal of laughter again.

“Well! she is a female!” he went on. “Merci for the acquaintance, my boy!  She’s a devil in petticoats.  I arrived; I walked in like such an avenging Jove, you know, that I felt almost afraid of myself . . . .  I frowned, I scowled, even clenched my fists to be more awe-inspiring. . . .  ‘Jokes don’t pay with me, madam!’ said I, and more in that style.  And I threatened her with the law and with the Governor.  To begin with she burst into tears, said she’d been joking with you, and even took me to the cupboard to give me the money.  Then she began arguing that the future of Europe lies in the hands of the French, and the Russians, swore at women. . . .  Like you, I listened, fascinated, ass that I was. . . .  She kept singing the praises of my beauty, patted me on the arm near the shoulder, to see how strong I was, and . . . and as you see, I’ve only just got away from her!  Ha, ha!  She’s enthusiastic about you!”

“You’re a nice fellow!” laughed the lieutenant.  “A married man! highly respected. . . .  Well, aren’t you ashamed?  Disgusted?  Joking apart though, old man, you’ve got your Queen Tamara in your own neighbourhood. . . .”

“In my own neighbourhood!  Why, you wouldn’t find another such chameleon in the whole of Russia!  I’ve never seen anything like it in my life, though I know a good bit about women, too.  I have known regular devils in my time, but I never met anything like this.  It is, as you say, by insolence and cynicism she gets over you.  What is so attractive in her is the diabolical suddenness, the quick transitions, the swift shifting hues. . . .  Brrr!  And the IOU—­ phew!  Write it off for lost.  We are both great sinners, we’ll go halves in our sin.  I shall put down to you not two thousand three hundred, but half of it.  Mind, tell my wife I was at the tenant’s.”