Velchaninoff glanced round the room meanwhile. The place was very untidy; the bed was unmade; the clothes thrown about the floor; on the table were two coffee tumblers with the dregs of coffee still in them, and a bottle of champagne half finished, and with a tumbler standing alongside it. He glanced at the next room, but all was quiet there; the little girl had hidden herself, and was as still as a mouse. “You don’t mean to say you drink that stuff at this time of day?” he asked, indicating the champagne bottle. “It’s only a remnant,” explained Pavel Pavlovitch, a little confused. “My word! You _are_ a changed man!” “Bad habits, sir; and all of a sudden. All dating from that time, sir. Give you my word, I couldn’t resist it. But I’m all right now—I’m not drunk—I shan’t talk twaddle as I did last night; don’t be afraid sir, it’s all right! From that very day, sir; give you my word it is! And if anyone had told me half a year ago that I should become like this,—if they had shown me my face in a glass then as I should be _now_, I should have given them the lie, sir; I should indeed!” “Hem! Then you _were_ drunk last night?” “Yes—I was!” admitted Pavel Pavlovitch, a little guiltily—“not exactly _drunk_, a little _beyond_ drunk!—I tell you this by way of explanation, because I’m always worse _after_ being drunk! If I’m only a little drunk, still the violence and unreasonableness of intoxication come out afterwards, and stay out too; and then I feel my grief the more keenly. I daresay my grief is responsible for my drinking. I am capable of making an awful fool of myself and offending people when I’m drunk. I daresay I seemed strange enough to you last night?” “Don’t you remember what you said and did?” “Assuredly I do—I remember everything!” “Listen to me, Pavel Pavlovitch: I have thought it over and have come to very much the same conclusion as you did yourself,” began Velchaninoff gently; “besides—I believe I was a little too irritable towards you last night—too impatient,—I admit it gladly; the fact is—I am not very well sometimes, and your sudden arrival, you know, in the middle of the night——”