Kolya Gladishev, who was very fond of dancing, could not hold out and invited Tamara; he knew even from the previous winter that she danced more lightly and skillfully than the rest.  While he was twirling in the waltz, the stout head-conductor, skillfully making his way between the couples, slipped away unperceived through the drawing room.  Kolya did not have a chance to notice him.

No matter how Verka pressed Petrov, she could not, in any way, drag him off his place.  The recent light intoxication had by now gone entirely out of his head; and more and more horrible, and unrealizable, and monstrous did that for which he had come here seem to him.  He might have gone away, saying that not a one here pleased him; have put the blame on a headache, or something; but he knew that Gladishev would not let him go; and mainly—­it seemed unbearably hard to get up from his place and to walk a few steps by himself.  And, besides that, he felt that he had not the strength to start talking of this with Kolya.

They finished dancing.  Tamara and Gladishev again sat down side by side.

“Well, really, how is it that Jennechka isn’t coming by now?” asked Kolya impatiently.

Tamara quickly gave Verka a look with a question, incomprehensible to the uninitiated, in her eyes.  Verka quickly lowered her eyelashes.  This signified:  yes, he is gone.

“I’ll go right away and call her,” said Tamara.

“But what are you so stuck on your Jennka for,” said Henrietta.  “You might take me.”

“All right, another time,” answered Kolya and nervously began to smoke.

Jennka was not even beginning to dress yet.  She was sitting before the mirror and powdering her face.

“What is it, Tamarochka?” she asked.

“Your little cadet has come to you.  He’s waiting.”

“Ah, that’s the little baby of last year...  Well, the devil with him!”

“And that’s right, too.  But how healthy and handsome the lad has grown, and how tall...  It’s a delight, that’s all!  So if you don’t want to, I’ll go myself.”

Tamara saw in the mirror how Jennka contracted her eyebrows.

“No, you wait a while, Tamara, don’t.  I’ll see.  Send him here to me.  Say that I’m not well, that my head aches.”

“I have already told him, anyway, that Zociya had opened the door unsuccessfully and hit you on the head; and that you’re lying down with a cold pack.  But the only thing is, is it worth while, Jennechka?”

“Whether it’s worth while or not, that’s not your business, Tamara,” answered Jennka rudely.

Tamara asked cautiously: 

“Is it possible, then, that you aren’t at all, at all sorry?”

“But for me you aren’t sorry?” and she passed her hand over the red stripe that slashed her throat.  “And for yourself you aren’t sorry?  And not sorry for this Liubka, miserable as she is?  And not sorry for Pashka?  You’re huckleberry jelly, and not a human being!”