Lydia Constantinovna smiled as she answered: "Why not indeed! That is a poetic fancy. But the reality is very much worse. Marin-Brod has never been a country house, it is a forest manor, a forestry-office and nothing more ... nothing more.... I always feel an interloper here. This is only my second day and I am already depressed." Her tone was sad, yet it held just a perceptible note of anger. "Reality and Fancy? Certainly I am an artist, for I always see the latter, the beautiful and spiritual side," Mintz declared; and added in an undertone: "Do you remember yesterday ... the park?" "Oh, yes, the park," Lydia replied in a tired, subdued tone. "They hold the Twelfth Gospel Service to-day; when I was a young girl, how I used to love standing in church with a candle--I felt so good. And now I love nothing!" It was already quite dark in the drawing room. A wavering, greenish- golden light streamed in through the windows and played on the dim walls. Ivanov came out of his study. He was wearing high boots and a leather jacket, and carried a rifle under his arm. He went silently to the door. Lydia Constantinovna stopped him. "Are you going out again, Sergius? Is it to hunt?" "Yes." Ivanov stood still and Lydia went up to him. She had dark shadows under her eyes, and the hand of time--already bearing away her youth and beauty--lay upon her marvellously white skin, at her lips and on her cheeks, in faint, scarcely visible wrinkles. Ivanov noticed it distinctly. "Does one hunt at night--in the dark? I did not know that," Lydia said, repeating "I did not know...." "I am going to the wood." "I have come back here after not having seen you for months, and we have not yet spoken a word...." Ivanov did not reply, but went out. His footsteps echoed through the great house, finally dying away in the distance. The front-door slammed, shaking the whole mansion, which was old and falling to pieces. Lydia Constantinovna remained in the middle of the room, her face turned to the door. Mintz approached, took her hand, and raised it to his lips. "You must not take it to heart, Lit," he said softly and kindly. She freed her hand and laid it on Mintz's shoulder. "No, one should not take it to heart," she assented in a low voice, "One should not.... But listen, Mintz.... How strange it all is! Once he loved me very much, though I never loved him.... But my youth was spent here, and now I feel unhappy.... I remember all that happened in this drawing-room, it was the first time. If only I could have all over again! Perhaps I should act differently then. I feel sorry now for my youth and inexperience, though formerly I cursed them, and I am far from regretting all that followed afterwards. But I need a refuge now.... If you only knew how much he loved me in those days!..." Lydia Constantinovna was silent a moment, her head bent, then flinging it back she gave a hollow sardonic laugh.