"You're married, Vladimir, and sometimes I think of your wife and think of how I would feel under similar circumstances." "That is all?" "Well--" "Then listen to me, Anna. What is a wife? A man has a wife because it is conventional, like a country says it is striving for peace when often it must have war to keep from flying apart. I can get you anything, anything. I could treat you like no wife ever was treated. Here, you like this dacha? Say the word and it is yours." Servants came with vodka, champagne, paper-thin slices of sturgeon, caviar. Chenkov nibbled at the sturgeon while Laniq had some caviar and champagne. Chenkov began drinking vodka and hardly paused until, Laniq realized, he was high enough to be uninhibited, yet not sufficiently high to be a boor. It was the gentlemanly thing in Russian nobility, Laniq knew. "Do you not even feel inclined to kiss me tonight, my Anna?" Laniq offered her lips without heat, got them bruised by Chenkov's teeth. "Then at least dance for me, Anna." She had danced for him before, here in this very dacha, at the same fireplace. But now it was different, now she could not feel the same emotional indifference and so whet Chenkov's appetite sufficiently for him to start talking. Laniq got up and did a tentative pirouette. "Come now." Laniq danced slowly, spinning and dipping and feeling terribly sorry for herself. But the firelight was warm and the champagne, and the whole room seemed to go out of focus except for Chenkov's hungry eyes, which became enormous--and in Laniq's own time the dance was something to be done because you loved doing it, and except for Chenkov's eyes she might dance with abandon and enjoy herself. _Tedor_, she thought. _Tedor...._ * * * * * If she closed her own eyes she thought, almost, she was dancing for him and not for Chenkov. The slit skirt swirled around her flashing thighs; the bodice, slashed from throat to waist, clung and fell away, clung and fell away. She danced not for Chenkov but for Tedor--and then not for Tedor but for all the people in the world who might live in freedom if Chenkov's tongue loosened. But the hands which reached up for her legs and pulled her down were Chenkov's. "Tell me," she said breathlessly while Chenkov tried to paw her and she scampered away to fill a large glass with vodka for him and a small one with champagne for herself. "Tell me, are you as important a man as I hear?" "My dear Anna! You're jesting." "No I mean it. I'm only a country girl, really I am, and I'd--" "You? A country bumpkin. That's good, that's splendid. Well, then I will tell you. I am number two man in all the realm, and...." Laniq pouted. "Don't cry. Don't. I will, one day be number one man, I know it. You may rest assured of that. I could show you things, so many things which would make your beautiful hair stand on end." "Then show me!" "Very well--I shall, my Anna."