ong in my inviting you all to come and take
a cup of tea with my Aunt?" said Dubkoff, with a wink at Woloda. "If you
don't like us going, it is your affair; yet we are going all the same.
Are you coming, Woloda?"

"Yes, yes," assented Woloda. "We can go there, and then return to my
rooms and continue our piquet."

"Do you want to go with them or not?" said Dimitri, approaching me.

"No," I replied, at the same time making room for him to sit down beside
me on the divan. "I did not wish to go in any case, and since you advise
me not to, nothing on earth will make me go now. Yet," I added a moment
later, "I cannot honestly say that I have NO desire to go. All I say is
that I am glad I am not going."

"That is right," he said. "Live your own life, and do not dance to any
one's piping. That is the better way."

This little tiff not only failed to mar our hilarity, but even increased
it. Dimitri suddenly reverted to the kindly mood which I loved best--so
great (as I afterwards remarked on more than one occasion) was the
influence which the consciousness of having done a good deed exercised
upon him. At the present moment the source of his satisfaction was
the fact that he had stopped my expedition to "Auntie's." He grew
extraordinarily gay, called for another bottle of champagne (which was
against his rules), invited some one who was a perfect stranger into our
room, plied him with wine, sang "Gaudeamus igitur," requested every one
to join him in the chorus, and proposed that we should and rink at the
Sokolniki. [Mews.]

"Let us enjoy ourselves to-night," he said with a laugh. "It is in
honour of his matriculation that you now see me getting drunk for the
first time in my life."

Yet somehow this merriment sat ill upon him. He was like some
good-natured father or tutor who is pleased with his young charges, and
lets himself go for their amusement, yet at the same time tries to show
them that one can enjoy oneself decently and in an honourable manner.
However, his unexpected gaiety had an infectious influence upon myself
and my companions, and the more so because each of us had now drunk
about half a bottle of champagne.

It was in this pleasing frame of mind that I went out into the main
salon to smoke a cigarette which Dubkoff had given me. In rising I
noticed that my head seemed to swim a little, and that my legs and
arms retained their natural positions only when I bent my thoughts
determinedly upon them. At oth