you please to pour out tea yourself, or should she
send Dunyasha?'

'I will pour out myself, myself,' interposed Nikolai Petrovitch
hurriedly. 'Arkady, how do you take your tea, with cream, or with
lemon?'

'With cream,' answered Arkady; and after a brief silence, he uttered
interrogatively, 'Daddy?'

Nikolai Petrovitch in confusion looked at his son.

'Well?' he said.

Arkady dropped his eyes.

'Forgive me, dad, if my question seems unsuitable to you,' he began,
'but you yourself, by your openness yesterday, encourage me to be open
... you will not be angry ...?'

'Go on.'

'You give me confidence to ask you.... Isn't the reason, Fen ... isn't
the reason she will not come here to pour out tea, because I'm here?'

Nikolai Petrovitch turned slightly away.

'Perhaps,' he said, at last, 'she supposes ... she is ashamed.'

Arkady turned a rapid glance on his father.

'She has no need to be ashamed. In the first place, you are aware of my
views' (it was very sweet to Arkady to utter that word); 'and secondly,
could I be willing to hamper your life, your habits in the least thing?
Besides, I am sure you could not make a bad choice; if you have allowed
her to live under the same roof with you, she must be worthy of it; in
any case, a son cannot judge his father,--least of all, I, and least of
all such a father who, like you, has never hampered my liberty in
anything.'

Arkady's voice had been shaky at the beginning; he felt himself
magnanimous, though at the same time he realised he was delivering
something of the nature of a lecture to his father; but the sound of
one's own voice has a powerful effect on any man, and Arkady brought
out his last words resolutely, even with emphasis.

'Thanks, Arkasha,' said Nikolai Petrovitch thickly, and his fingers
again strayed over his eyebrows and forehead. 'Your suppositions are
just in fact. Of course, if this girl had not deserved.... It is not a
frivolous caprice. It's not easy for me to talk to you about this; but
you will understand that it is difficult for her to come here, in your
presence, especially the first day of your return.'

'In that case I will go to her,' cried Arkady, with a fresh rush of
magnanimous feeling, and he jumped up from his seat. 'I will explain to
her that she has no need to be ashamed before me.'

Nikolai Petrovitch too got up.

'Arkady,' he began, 'be so good ... how can ... there ... I have not
told you yet ...'

But Arkady did n