the door.

"You'll have a dark drive to-night," Rashevitch muttered, following
him. "The moon does not rise till late to-night."

They stood together on the steps in the dark, and waited for the
horses to be brought. It was cool.

"There's a falling star," said Meier, wrapping himself in his
overcoat.

"There are a great many in August."

When the horses were at the door, Rashevitch gazed intently at the
sky, and said with a sigh:

"A phenomenon worthy of the pen of Flammarion. . . ."

After seeing his visitor off, he walked up and down the garden,
gesticulating in the darkness, reluctant to believe that such a
queer, stupid misunderstanding had only just occurred. He was ashamed
and vexed with himself. In the first place it had been extremely
incautious and tactless on his part to raise the damnable subject
of blue blood, without finding out beforehand what his visitor's
position was. Something of the same sort had happened to him before;
he had, on one occasion in a railway carriage, begun abusing the
Germans, and it had afterwards appeared that all the persons he had
been conversing with were German. In the second place he felt that
Meier would never come and see him again. These intellectuals who
have risen from the people are morbidly sensitive, obstinate and
slow to forgive.

"It's bad, it's bad," muttered Rashevitch, spitting; he had a feeling
of discomfort and loathing as though he had eaten soap. "Ah, it's
bad!"

He could see from the garden, through the drawing-room window, Genya
by the piano, very pale, and looking scared, with her hair down.
She was talking very, very rapidly. . . . Iraida was walking up and
down the room, lost in thought; but now she, too, began talking
rapidly with her face full of indignation. They were both talking
at once. Rashevitch could not hear a word, but he guessed what they
were talking about. Genya was probably complaining that her father
drove away every decent person from the house with his talk, and
to-day he had driven away from them their one acquaintance, perhaps
a suitor, and now the poor young man would not have one place in
the whole district where he could find rest for his soul. And judging
by the despairing way in which she threw up her arms, Iraida was
talking probably on the subject of their dreary existence, their
wasted youth. . . .

When he reached his own room, Rashevitch sat down on his bed and
began to undress. He felt oppressed, and he was st