Sanine

"Yes, you!" replied Sanine to his sister, gravely.

"Why, of course I am pretty. You should have said indescribably

pretty!" And, laughing gaily, Lida sank into a chair, glancing again at

Sanine. Raising her arms and thus emphasizing the curves of her shapely

bosom, she proceeded to remove her hat, but, in so doing, let a long

hat-pin fall on the gravel, and her veil and hair became disarranged.

"Andrei Pavlovitch, do please help me!" she plaintively cried to the

taciturn lieutenant.

"Yes, she's a beauty!" murmured Sanine, thinking aloud, and never

taking his eyes off her. Once more Lida glanced shyly at her brother.

"We're all of us beautiful here," said she.

"What's that? Beautiful? Ha! Ha!" laughed Sarudine, showing his white,

shining teeth. "We are at best but the modest frame that serves to

heighten the dazzling splendour of your beauty."

"I say, what eloquence, to be sure!" exclaimed Sanine, in surprise.

There was a slight shade of irony in his tone.

"Lidia Petrovna would make anybody eloquent," said Tanaroff the silent,

as he tried to help Lida to take off her hat, and in so doing ruffled

her hair. She pretended to be vexed, laughing all the while.

"What?" drawled Sanine. "Are you eloquent too?"

"Oh! let them be!" whispered Novikoff, hypocritically, though secretly

pleased.

Lida frowned at Sanine, to whom her dark eyes plainly said: "Don't imagine that I cannot see what these people are. I intend to

please myself. I am not a fool any more than you are, and I know what I

am about."

Sanine smiled at her.

At last the hat was removed, which Tanaroff solemnly placed on the

table.

"Look! Look what you've done to me, Andrei Pavlovitch!" cried Lida half

peevishly, half coquettishly. "You've got my hair into such a tangle!

Now I shall have to go indoors."

"I'm so awfully sorry!" stammered Tanaroff, in confusion.

Lida rose, gathered up her skirts, and ran indoors laughing, followed

by the glances of all the men. When she had gone they seemed to breathe

more freely, without that nervous sense of restraint which men usually

experience in the presence of a pretty young woman. Sarudine lighted a

cigarette which he smoked with evident gusto. One felt, when he spoke,

that he habitually took the lead in a conversation, and that what he

thought was something quite different from what he said.

"I have just been persuading Lidia Petrovna to study singing seriously.

With such a voice, her career is assured."