‘What is it?’ she cried, directly the door was closed. Nikolai Artemyevitch flung an indifferent glance at Anna Vassilyevna. ‘Nothing special; what a way you have of assuming the air of a victim at once!’ he began, quite needlessly dropping the corners of his mouth at every word. ‘I only want to forewarn you that we shall have a new guest dining here to-day.’ ‘Who is it?’ ‘Kurnatovsky, Yegor Andreyevitch. You don’t know him. The head secretary in the senate.’ ‘He is to dine with us to-day?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘And was it only to tell me this that you made every one go away?’ Nikolai Artemyevitch again flung a glance--this time one of irony--at Anna Vassilyevna. ‘Does that surprise you? Defer your surprise a little.’ He ceased speaking. Anna Vassilyevna too was silent for a little time. ‘I could have wished----’ she was beginning. ‘I know you have always looked on me as an “immoral” man,’ began Nikolai Artemyevitch suddenly. ‘I!’ muttered Anna Vassilyevna, astounded. ‘And very likely you are right. I don’t wish to deny that I have in fact sometimes given you just grounds for dissatisfaction’ (“my greys!” flashed through Anna Vassilyevna’s head), ‘though you must yourself allow, that in the condition, as you are aware, of your constitution----’ ‘And I make no complaint against you, Nikolai Artemyevitch.’ ‘_C’est possible_. In any case, I have no intention of justifying myself. Time will justify me. But I regard it as my duty to prove to you that I understand my duties, and know how to care for--for the welfare of the family entrusted--entrusted to me.’ ‘What’s the meaning of all this?’ Anna Vassilyevna was thinking. (She could not guess that the preceding evening at the English club a discussion had arisen in a corner of the smoking-room as to the incapacity of Russians to make speeches. ‘Which of us can speak? Mention any one!’ one of the disputants had exclaimed. ‘Well, Stahov, for instance,’ had answered the other, pointing to Nikolai Artemyevitch, who stood up on the spot almost squealing with delight.) ‘For instance,’ pursued Nikolai Artemyevitch, ‘my daughter Elena. Don’t you consider that the time has come for her to take a decisive step along the path--to be married, I mean to say. All these intellectual and philanthropic pursuits are all very well, but only up to a certain point, up to a certain age. It’s time for her to drop her mistiness, to get out of the society of all these artists, scholars, and Montenegrins, and do like everybody else.’ ‘How am I to understand you?’ asked Anna Vassilyevna.