"There's your fine friend!" she cried; "Michael Alexandrovitch isn't coming. Put me off at the last moment, and it's the third time. And I might have gone to Musikalnaya Drama. I was asked by--" "Well, why not?" Grogoff interrupted calmly. "If he had something better to do--" Then she turned upon him, screaming, and in a moment they were at it, tooth and nail, heaping up old scores, producing fact after fact to prove, the one to the other, false friendship, lying manners, deceitful promises, perjured records. Vera tried to interrupt, Markovitch said something, I began a remonstrance--in a moment we were all at it, and the room was a whirl of noise. In the tempest it was only I who heard the door open. I turned and saw Henry Bohun standing there. I smile now when I think of that moment of his arrival, go fitting to the characters of the place, so appropriate a symbol of what was to come. Bohun was beautifully dressed, spotlessly neat, in a bowler hat a little to one side, a light-blue silk scarf, a dark-blue overcoat. His face wore an expression of dignified self-appreciation. It was as though he stood there breathing blessings on the house that he had sanctified by his arrival. He looked, too, with it all, such a boy that my heart was touched. And there was something good and honest about his eyes. He may have spoken, but certainly no one heard him in the confusion. I just caught Nina's shrill voice: "Listen all of you! There you are! You hear what he says! That I told him it was to be Tuesday when, everybody knows--Verotchka! Ah--Verotchka! He says--" Then she paused; I caught her amazed glance at the door, her gasp, a scream of stifled laughter, and behold she was gone! Then they all saw. There was instant silence, a terrible pause, and then Bohun's polite gentle voice: "Is this where Mr. Markovitch lives? I beg your pardon--" Great awkwardness followed. It is quite an illusion to suppose that Russians are easy, affable hosts. I know of no people in the world who are so unable to put you at your ease if there is something unfortunate in the air. They have few easy social graces, and they are inclined to abandon at once a situation if it is made difficult for them. If it needs an effort to make a guest happy they leave him alone and trust to a providence in whose powers, however, they entirely disbelieve. Bohun was led to his room, his bags being carried by old Sacha, the Markovitch's servant, and the Dvornik. His bags, I remember, were very splendid, and I saw the eyes of Uncle Ivan grow large as he watched their progress. Then with a sigh he drew a chair up to the table and began eating zakuska, putting salt-fish and radishes and sausage on to his place and eating them with a fork. "Dyadya, Ivan!" Vera said reproachfully. "Not yet--we haven't begun. Ivan Andreievitch, what do you think? Will he want hot water?" She hurried after him.