oward the other door. Natasha was about
to call him but changed her mind. "Let him look for me," thought she.
Hardly had Boris gone than Sonya, flushed, in tears, and muttering
angrily, came in at the other door. Natasha checked her first impulse to
run out to her, and remained in her hiding place, watching--as under an
invisible cap--to see what went on in the world. She was experiencing
a new and peculiar pleasure. Sonya, muttering to herself, kept looking
round toward the drawing-room door. It opened and Nicholas came in.

"Sonya, what is the matter with you? How can you?" said he, running up
to her.

"It's nothing, nothing; leave me alone!" sobbed Sonya.

"Ah, I know what it is."

"Well, if you do, so much the better, and you can go back to her!"

"So-o-onya! Look here! How can you torture me and yourself like that,
for a mere fancy?" said Nicholas taking her hand.

Sonya did not pull it away, and left off crying. Natasha, not stirring
and scarcely breathing, watched from her ambush with sparkling eyes.
"What will happen now?" thought she.

"Sonya! What is anyone in the world to me? You alone are everything!"
said Nicholas. "And I will prove it to you."

"I don't like you to talk like that."

"Well, then, I won't; only forgive me, Sonya!" He drew her to him and
kissed her.

"Oh, how nice," thought Natasha; and when Sonya and Nicholas had gone
out of the conservatory she followed and called Boris to her.

"Boris, come here," said she with a sly and significant look. "I
have something to tell you. Here, here!" and she led him into the
conservatory to the place among the tubs where she had been hiding.

Boris followed her, smiling.

"What is the something?" asked he.

She grew confused, glanced round, and, seeing the doll she had thrown
down on one of the tubs, picked it up.

"Kiss the doll," said she.

Boris looked attentively and kindly at her eager face, but did not
reply.

"Don't you want to? Well, then, come here," said she, and went further
in among the plants and threw down the doll. "Closer, closer!" she
whispered.

She caught the young officer by his cuffs, and a look of solemnity and
fear appeared on her flushed face.

"And me? Would you like to kiss me?" she whispered almost inaudibly,
glancing up at him from under her brows, smiling, and almost crying from
excitement.

Boris blushed.

"How funny you are!" he said, bending down to her and blushing still
more, but he waited and di