captain of dragoons,
who was encouraging him by signs. "Do you not wish to dance then?... All
the same I again have the honour to engage you for the mazurka... You
think, perhaps, that I am drunk! That is all right!... I can dance all
the easier, I assure you"...

I saw that she was on the point of fainting with fright and indignation.

I went up to the drunken gentleman, caught him none too gently by the
arm, and, looking him fixedly in the face, requested him to retire.
"Because," I added, "the Princess promised long ago to dance the mazurka
with me."

"Well, then, there's nothing to be done! Another time!" he said,
bursting out laughing, and he retired to his abashed companions, who
immediately conducted him into another room.

I was rewarded by a deep, wondrous glance.

The Princess went up to her mother and told her the whole story. The
latter sought me out among the crowd and thanked me. She informed me
that she knew my mother and was on terms of friendship with half a dozen
of my aunts.

"I do not know how it has happened that we have not made your
acquaintance up to now," she added; "but confess, you alone are to blame
for that. You fight shy of everyone in a positively unseemly way. I hope
the air of my drawingroom will dispel your spleen... Do you not think
so?"

I uttered one of the phrases which everybody must have ready for such an
occasion.

The quadrilles dragged on a dreadfully long time.

At last the music struck up from the gallery, Princess Mary and I took
up our places.

I did not once allude to the drunken gentleman, or to my previous
behaviour, or to Grushnitski. The impression produced upon her by the
unpleasant scene was gradually dispelled; her face brightened up; she
jested very charmingly; her conversation was witty, without pretensions
to wit, vivacious and spontaneous; her observations were sometimes
profound... In a very involved sentence I gave her to understand that I
had liked her for a long time. She bent her head and blushed slightly.

"You are a strange man!" she said, with a forced laugh, lifting her
velvet eyes upon me.

"I did not wish to make your acquaintance," I continued, "because you
are surrounded by too dense a throng of adorers, in which I was afraid
of being lost to sight altogether."

"You need not have been afraid; they are all very tiresome"...

"All? Not all, surely?"

She looked fixedly at me as if endeavouring to recollect something, then
blushe