ise you?'

'What?'

'When Augustina Christianovna comes back--you take my meaning?'

'Yes, yes; well, what?'

'When you see her again--you follow the line of my thought?'

'Yes, yes, to be sure.'

'Try beating her; see what that would do.'

Nikolai Artemyevitch turned away exasperated.

'I thought he was really going to give me some practical advice. But
what can one expect from him! An artist, a man of no principles----'

'No principles! By the way, I'm told your favourite Mr. Kurnatovsky, the
man of principle, cleaned you out of a hundred roubles last night. That
was hardly delicate, you must own now.'

'What of it? We were playing high. Of course, I might expect--but they
understand so little how to appreciate him in this house----'

'That he thought: get what I can!' put in Shubin: 'whether he's to be my
father-in-law or not, is still on the knees of the gods, but a hundred
roubles is worth something to a man who doesn't take bribes.'

'Father-in-law! How the devil am I his father-in-law? _Vous revez, mon
cher_. Of course, any other girl would be delighted with such a suitor.
Only consider: a man of spirit and intellect, who has gained a position
in the world, served in two provinces----'

'Led the governor in one of them by the nose,' remarked Shubin.

'Very likely. To be sure, that's how it should be. Practical, a business
man----'

'And a capital hand at cards,' Shubin remarked again.

'To be sure, and a capital hand at cards. But Elena Nikolaevna.... Is
there any understanding her? I should be glad to know if there is any
one who would undertake to make out what it is she wants. One day she's
cheerful, another she's dull; all of a sudden she's so thin there's no
looking at her, and then suddenly she's well again, and all without any
apparent reason----'

A disagreeable-looking man-servant came in with a cup of coffee, cream
and sugar on a tray.

'The father is pleased with a suitor,' pursued Nikolai Artemyevitch,
breaking off a lump of sugar; 'but what is that to the daughter! That
was all very well in the old patriarchal days, but now we have changed
all that. _Nous avons change tout ca_. Nowadays a young girl talks to
any one she thinks fit, reads what she thinks fit; she goes about Moscow
alone without a groom or a maid, just as in Paris; and all that is
permitted. The other day I asked, "Where is Elena Nikolaevna?" I'm told
she has gone out. Where? No one knows. Is that--the proper thin