bject,
but the conversation made little progress. Zoya made her appearance
and began walking about the room on tip-toe, giving them thereby to
understand that Anna Vassilyevna was not yet awake.

Bersenyev went away.

In the evening of the same day a note from him was brought to Elena.
'He has come back,' he wrote to her, 'sunburnt and dusty to his very
eyebrows; but where and why he went I don't know; won't you find out?'

'Won't you find out!' Elena whispered, 'as though he talked to me!'

XIV

The next day, at two o'clock, Elena was standing in the garden before a
small kennel, where she was rearing two puppies. (A gardener had found
them deserted under a hedge, and brought them to the young mistress,
being told by the laundry-maids that she took pity on beasts of
all sorts. He was not wrong in his reckoning. Elena had given him a
quarter-rouble.) She looked into the kennel, assured herself that the
puppies were alive and well, and that they had been provided with fresh
straw, turned round, and almost uttered a cry; down an alley straight
towards her was walking Insarov, alone.

'Good-morning,' he said, coming up to her and taking off his cap. She
noticed that he certainly had got much sunburnt during the last three
days. 'I meant to have come here with Andrei Petrovitch, but he was
rather slow in starting; so here I am without him. There is no one in
your house; they are all asleep or out of doors, so I came on here.'

'You seem to be apologising,' replied Elena. 'There's no need to do
that. We are always very glad to see you. Let us sit here on the bench
in the shade.'

She seated herself. Insarov sat down near her.

'You have not been at home these last days, I think?' she began.

'No,' he answered. 'I went away. Did Andrei Petrovitch tell you?'

Insarov looked at her, smiled, and began playing with his cap. When he
smiled, his eyes blinked, and his lips puckered up, which gave him a
very good-humoured appearance.

'Andrei Petrovitch most likely told you too that I went away with
some--unattractive people,' he said, still smiling.

Elena was a little confused, but she felt at once that Insarov must
always be told the truth.

'Yes,' she said decisively.

'What did you think of me?' he asked her suddenly.

Elena raised her eyes to him.

'I thought,' she said, 'I thought that you always know what you're
doing, and you are incapable of doing anything wrong.'

'Well--thanks for that. You