Having carried the things indoors, Yourii, for want of something else
to do, went down the steps leading to the garden. It was dark as the
grave, and the sky with it vast company of gleaming stars enhanced the
weird effect. There, on one of the steps, sat Lialia; her little grey
form was scarcely perceptible in the gloom.
"Is that you, Yourii?" she asked.
"Yes, it is," he replied, as he sat down beside her. Dreamily she leant
her head on his shoulder, and the fragrance of her fresh, sweet
girlhood touched his senses.
"Did you have good sport?" said Lialia. Then after a pause, she added
softly, "and where is Anatole Pavlovitch? I heard you drive up."
"Your Anatole Pavlovitch is a dirty beast!" is what Yourii, feeling
suddenly incensed, would have liked to say. However, he answered
carelessly: "I really don't know. He had to see a patient."
"A patient," repeated Lialia mechanically. She said no more, but gazed
at the stars.
She was not vexed that Riasantzeff had not come. On the contrary, she
wished to be alone, so that, undisturbed by his presence, she might
give herself up to delicious meditation. To her, the sentiment that
filled her youthful being was strange and sweet and tender. It was the
consciousness of a climax, desired, inevitable, and yet disturbing,
which should close the page of her past life and commence that of her
new one. So new, indeed, that Lialia was to become an entirely
different being.
To Yourii it was strange that his merry, laughing sister should have
become so quiet and pensive. Depressed and irritable himself,
everything, Lialia, the dark garden the distant starlit sky seemed to
him sad and cold. He did not perceive that this dreamy mood concealed
not sorrow, but the very essence and fulness of life. In the wide
heaven surged forces immeasurable and unknown; the dim garden drew
forth vital sap from the earth; and in Lialia's heart there was a joy
so full, so complete, that she feared lest any movement, any impression
should break the spell. Radiant as the starry heaven, mysterious as the
dark garden, harmonies of love and yearning vibrated within her soul.
"Tell me, Lialia, do you love Anatole Pavlovitch very much?" asked
Yourii, gently, as if he feared to rouse her.
"How can you ask?" she thought, but, recollecting herself, she nestled
closer to her brother, grateful to him for not speaking of anything
else but of her life's one interest--the man she adored.