than he, embraced him so that both her slender bare arms clasped him above his neck, and, tossing back her hair, kissed him full on the lips.
Then she slipped down among the flowerpots on the other side of the tubs and stood, hanging her head.
“Natasha,” he said, “you know that I love you, but…”
“You are in love with me?” Natasha broke in.
“Yes, I am, but please don’t let us do like that…. In another four years… then I will ask for your hand.”
Natasha considered.
“Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen,” she counted on her slender little fingers. “All right! Then it’s settled?”
A smile of joy and satisfaction lit up her eager face.
“Settled!” replied Boris.
“Forever?” said the little girl. “Till death itself?”
She took his arm and with a happy face went with him into the adjoining sitting room.
CHAPTER XIV
After receiving her visitors, the countess was so tired that she gave orders to admit no more, but the porter was told to be sure to invite to dinner all who came “to congratulate.” The countess wished to have a tete-a-tete talk with the friend of her childhood, Princess Anna Mikhaylovna, whom she had not seen properly since she returned from Petersburg. Anna Mikhaylovna, with her tear-worn but pleasant face, drew her chair nearer to that of the countess.
“With you I will be quite frank,” said Anna Mikhaylovna. “There are not many left of us old friends! That’s why I so value your friendship.”
Anna Mikhaylovna looked at Vera and paused. The countess pressed her friend’s hand.
“Vera,” she said to her eldest daughter who was evidently not a favorite, “how is it you have so little tact? Don’t you see you are not wanted here? Go to the other girls, or…”
The handsome Vera smiled contemptuously but did not seem at all hurt.
“If you had told me sooner, Mamma, I would have gone,” she replied as she rose to go to her own room.
But as she passed the sitting room she noticed two couples sitting, one pair at each window. She stopped and smiled scornfully. Sonya was sitting close to Nicholas who was copying out some verses for her, the first he had ever written. Boris and Natasha were at the other window and ceased talking when Vera entered. Sonya and Natasha looked at Vera with guilty, happy faces.
It was pleasant and touching to see these little girls in love; but apparently the sight of them roused no pleasant feeling in Vera.
“How often have I asked you not to take my things?” she said. “You have a room of your own,” and she took the inkstand from Nicholas.
“In a minute, in a minute,” he said, dipping his pen.
“You always manage to do things at the wrong time,” continued Vera. “You came rushing into the drawing room so that everyone felt ashamed of you.”
Though what she said was quite just, perhaps for that very reason no one replied, and the four simply looked at one another. She lingered in the room with the inkstand in her hand.
“And at your age what secrets can there be between Natasha and Boris, or between you two? It’s all nonsense!”
“Now, Vera, what does it matter to you?” said Natasha in defense, speaking very gently.
She seemed that day to be more than ever kind and affectionate to everyone.
“Very silly,” said Vera. “I am ashamed of you. Secrets indeed!”
“All have secrets of their own,” answered Natasha, getting warmer. “We don’t interfere with you and Berg.”
“I should think not,” said Vera, “because there can never be anything wrong in my behavior. But I’ll just tell Mamma how you are behaving with Boris.”
“Natalya Ilynichna behaves very well to me,” remarked Boris. “I have nothing to complain of.”
“Don’t, Boris! You are such a diplomat that it is really tiresome,” said Natasha in a mortified voice that trembled slightly. (She used the word “diplomat,” which was just then much in vogue among the children, in the special sense they attached to it.) “Why does she bother me?” And she added, turning to Vera, “You’ll never understand it, because you’ve never loved anyone. You have no heart! You are a Madame de Genlis and nothing more” (this nickname, bestowed on Vera by Nicholas, was considered very stinging), “and your greatest pleasure is to be unpleasant to people! Go and flirt with Berg as much as you please,” she finished quickly.
“I shall at any rate not run after a young man before visitors…”
“Well, now you’ve done what you wanted,” put in Nicholas—“said unpleasant things to everyone and upset them. Let’s go to the nursery.”
All four, like a flock of scared birds, got up and left the room.
“The unpleasant things were said to me,” remarked Vera, “I said none to anyone.”
“Madame de Genlis! Madame de Genlis!” shouted laughing voices through the door.
The handsome Vera, who produced such an irritating and unpleasant effect on everyone, smiled and, evidently unmoved by what had been said to her, went to the looking glass and arranged her hair and scarf. Looking at her own handsome face she seemed to become still colder and calmer.
In the drawing room the conversation was still going on.
“Ah, my dear,” said the countess, “my life is not all roses either. Don’t I know that at the rate we are living our means won’t last long? It’s all the Club and his easygoing nature. Even in the country do we get any rest? Theatricals, hunting, and heaven knows what besides! But don’t let’s talk about me; tell me how you managed everything. I often wonder at you, Annette—how at your age you can rush off alone in a carriage to Moscow, to Petersburg, to those ministers and great people, and know how to deal with them all! It’s quite astonishing. How did you get things settled? I couldn’t possibly do it.”
“Ah, my love,” answered Anna Mikhaylovna, “God grant you never know what it is to be left a widow without means and with a son you love to distraction! One learns many things then,” she added with a certain pride. “That lawsuit taught me much. When I want to see one of those big people I write a note: ‘Princess So-and-So desires an interview with So and-So,’ and then I take a cab and go myself two, three, or four times—till I get what I want. I don’t mind what they think of me.”
“Well, and to whom did you apply about Bory?” asked the countess. “You see yours is already an officer in the Guards, while my Nicholas is going as a cadet. There’s no one to interest himself for him. To whom did you apply?”
“To Prince Vasili. He was so kind. He at once agreed to everything, and put the matter before the Emperor,”
