‘But why don’t you sit down, Grigory Mihalitch,’ observed Irina at last. Litvinov obeyed and sat down. ‘_I say, Valérien, give me some fire_,’ remarked in English another general, also young, but already stout, with fixed eyes which seemed staring into the air, and thick silky whiskers, into which he slowly plunged his snow-white fingers. Ratmirov gave him a silver matchbox. ‘_Avez vous des papiros?_’ asked one of the ladies, with a lisp. ‘_De vrais papelitos, comtesse._’ ‘_Deux gendarmes un beau dimanche_,’ the dull-eyed general hummed again, with intense exasperation. ‘You must be sure to come and see us,’ Irina was saying to Litvinov meantime; ‘we are staying at the Hôtel de l’Europe. From four to six I am always at home. We have not seen each other for such a long time.’ Litvinov looked at Irina; she did not drop her eyes. ‘Yes, Irina Pavlovna, it is a long time--ever since we were at Moscow.’ ‘At Moscow, yes, at Moscow,’ she repeated abruptly. ‘Come and see me, we will talk and recall old times. Do you know, Grigory Mihalitch, you have not changed much.’ ‘Really? But you have changed, Irina Pavlovna.’ ‘I have grown older.’ ‘No, I did not mean that.’ ‘_Irène?_’ said a lady in a yellow hat and with yellow hair in an interrogative voice after some preliminary whispering and giggling with the officer sitting near her. ‘_Irène?_’ ‘I am older,’ pursued Irina, without answering the lady, ‘but I am not changed. No, no, I am changed in nothing.’ ‘_Deux gendarmes un beau dimanche!_’ was heard again. The irritable general only remembered the first line of the well-known ditty. ‘It still pricks a little, your excellency,’ observed the stout general with the whiskers, with a loud and broad intonation, apparently quoting from some amusing story, well-known to the whole _beau monde_, and, with a short wooden laugh he again fell to staring into the air. All the rest of the party laughed too. ‘What a sad dog you are, Boris!’ observed Ratmirov in an undertone. He spoke in English and pronounced even the name ‘Boris’ as if it were English. ‘_Irène?_’ the lady in the yellow hat said inquiringly for the third time. Irina turned sharply round to her. ‘_Eh bien? quoi? que me voulez-vous?_’ ‘_Je vous dirai plus tard_,’ replied the lady, mincing. With a very unattractive exterior, she was for ever mincing and grimacing. Some wit said of her that she ‘_minaudait dans le vide_,’ ‘grimaced upon the desert air.’ Irina frowned and shrugged her shoulders impatiently. ‘_Mais que fait donc Monsieur Verdier? Pourquoi ne vient-il pas?_’ cried one lady with that prolonged drawl which is the peculiarity of the Great Russian accent, and is so insupportable to French ears. ‘Ah, voo, ah, voo, mossoo Verdew, mossoo Verdew,’ sighed another lady, whose birthplace was Arzamass. ‘_Tranquillisez-vous, mesdames_,’ interposed Ratmirov. ‘_Monsieur Verdier m’a promis de venir se mettre à vos pieds._’ ‘He, he, he!’--The ladies fluttered their fans.