The feeling made me eager to shut the portfolio again as quickly as possible, but it seemed as though on this unlucky day I was destined to experience every possible kind of adversity.  I put the key back into the padlock and turned it round, but not in the right direction.  Thinking that the portfolio was now locked, I pulled at the key and, oh horror! found my hand come away with only the top half of the key in it!  In vain did I try to put the two halves together, and to extract the portion that was sticking in the padlock.  At last I had to resign myself to the dreadful thought that I had committed a new crime—­one which would be discovered to-day as soon as ever Papa returned to his study!  First of all, Mimi’s accusation on the staircase, and then that one mark, and then this key!  Nothing worse could happen now.  This very evening I should be assailed successively by Grandmamma (because of Mimi’s denunciation), by St. Jerome (because of the solitary mark), and by Papa (because of the matter of this key)—­yes, all in one evening!

“What on earth is to become of me?  What have I done?” I exclaimed as I paced the soft carpet.  “Well,” I went on with sudden determination, “what must come, must—­that’s all;” and, taking up the bonbons and the cigars, I ran back to the other part of the house.

The fatalistic formula with which I had concluded (and which was one that I often heard Nicola utter during my childhood) always produced in me, at the more difficult crises of my life, a momentarily soothing, beneficial effect.  Consequently, when I re-entered the drawing-room, I was in a rather excited, unnatural mood, yet one that was perfectly cheerful.

XIII.  THE TRAITRESS

After luncheon we began to play at round games, in which I took a lively part.  While indulging in “cat and mouse”, I happened to cannon rather awkwardly against the Kornakoffs’ governess, who was playing with us, and, stepping on her dress, tore a large hole in it.  Seeing that the girls—­particularly Sonetchka—­were anything but displeased at the spectacle of the governess angrily departing to the maidservants’ room to have her dress mended, I resolved to procure them the satisfaction a second time.  Accordingly, in pursuance of this amiable resolution, I waited until my victim returned, and then began to gallop madly round her, until a favourable moment occurred for once more planting my heel upon her dress and reopening the rent.  Sonetchka and the young princesses had much ado to restrain their laughter, which excited my conceit the more, but St. Jerome, who had probably divined my tricks, came up to me with the frown which I could never abide in him, and said that, since I seemed disposed to mischief, he would have to send me away if I did not moderate my behaviour.

However, I was in the desperate position of a person who, having staked more than he has in his pocket, and feeling that he can never make up his account, continues to plunge on unlucky cards—­not because he hopes to regain his losses, but because it will not do for him to stop and consider.  So, I merely laughed in an impudent fashion and flung away from my monitor.