ption of Lichonin, were looking at her--some frankly, others by
stealth and as though in passing--with curiosity and furtive desire.
The beauty of this woman, together with the thought of her altogether
easy accessibility, at any minute, agitated their imagination.

"There's something working upon you, Jennie," said Platonov quietly.

Caressingly, she just barely drew her fingers over his arm.

"Don't pay any attention. Just so ... our womanish affairs ... It won't
be interesting to you."

But immediately, turning to Tamara, she passionately and rapidly began
saying something in an agreed jargon, which presented a wild mixture
out of the Hebrew, Tzigani and Roumanian tongues and the cant words of
thieves and horse-thieves.

"Don't try to put anything over on the fly guy, the fly guy is next,"
Tamara cut her short and with a smile indicated the reporter with her
eyes.

Platonov had, in fact, understood. Jennie was telling with indignation
that during this day and night, thanks to the influx of a cheap public,
the unhappy Pashka had been taken into a room more than ten times--and
all by different men. Only just now she had had a hysterical fit,
ending in a faint. And now, scarcely having brought Pashka back to
consciousness and braced her up on valerian drops in a glass of
spirits, Emma Edwardovna had again sent her into the drawing room.
Jennie had attempted to take the part of her comrade, but the
house-keeper had cursed the intercessor out and had threatened her with
punishment.

"What is it all about?" asked Yarchenko in perplexity, raising high his
eyebrows.

"Don't trouble yourself ... nothing out of the way..." answered Jennie
in a still agitated voice. "Just so ... our little family trifles ...
Sergei Ivanich, may I have some of your wine?"

She poured out half a glass for herself and drank the cognac off at a
draught, distending her thin nostrils wide.

Platonov got up in silence and went toward the door.

"It's not worth while, Sergei Ivanich. Drop it..." Jennie stopped him.

"Oh no, why not?" objected the reporter. "I shall do a very simple and
innocent thing, take Pasha here, and if need be--pay for her, even. Let
her lie down here for a while on the divan and rest, even though a
little ... Niura, run for a pillow quick!"

Scarcely had the door shut behind his broad, ungainly figure in its
gray clothes, when Boris Sobashnikov at once commenced speaking with a
contemptuous bitterness:

"Gentle