When supper was announced all the guests sprang from their seats, pushed back their chairs, and laughingly went to the table. Only two of the most enthusiastic would remain in their places, and continue to wrangle and to gesticulate over the Knave of Spades, seeming not to care whether they had their supper or not, if only they could prove to each other the truth of their own assertions. The master of the house would put his arm about the waist of each and carry them off. “Well, let us have a tiny one!” Iván Mikhailovich generally began. A few “tiny” ones were drunk without any well-wishing, then they drank the health of Xenia Pavlovna and the other ladies present. Their faces reddened, their eyes became languishing, and from across the table was continually heard: “Please pass the caviar this way, Peter Vasilievich!” or “Please send those delicious herrings our way, Nicolai Gregorievich!” Bon mots, jests, and anecdotes were incessantly exchanged, some of them very stale and told for the fiftieth time at that very table. On these occasions Iván Mikhailovich never failed to recount with evident pride that he and Xenia had married for love. “Ours was a love match. I can almost say that I abducted Xenia Pavlovna.” “Is that so?” “Yes, just so! I remember it as if it happened to-day. I nearly committed suicide! Yes! We had an appointment in the garden (a luxurious garden it was! They very foolishly sold both the house and garden!) Well, so I stand there in the old arbor, stand and wait. And my heart is beating so loudly that it seems to me that a train must be passing somewhere--tock-tock-tock!” Here Iván Mikhailovich began to tell in detail how it all happened, and Xenia Pavlovna listened to his narrative from where she sat, slightly blushing, with half-closed eyes, and a little shiver. “At last she arrived in a carriage!” “Came on foot, not in a carriage!” Xenia Pavlovna unexpectedly corrected him, because every stroke, every detail of these far-away recollections was inexpressibly dear to her. “Well, in a carriage or on foot. What material difference does it make!” angrily remarked Iván Mikhailovich, greatly displeased at being interrupted, and continued his story, totally ignoring the correction as well as Xenia Pavlovna herself, as if this Xenia Pavlovna and--that other one--about whom he was telling his guests had nothing whatsoever in common. After supper they once more drank tea, yawned, covering the mouth with the hand, or with the napkin, and breathed hard, looking at their watches, and exchanging glances with their wives. “Yes, it is about time!” replied the wives, and the guests began to take their leave, the women kissed good-by, the men looked for their rubbers and hats, and again joked.