r. It was so keen as to make Kollomietzev,
who came out after Sipiagin, exclaim several times in French...

"Brrr! brrr! brrr!" He wrapped his cloak more closely about him and
seated himself in his elegant carriage with the hood thrown back. (Had
his poor friend Michael Obrenovitch, the Servian prince, seen it, he
would certainly have bought one like it at Binder's.... "Vous savez
Binder, le grand carrossier des Champs Elysees?")

Valentina Mihailovna, still in her night garments, peeped out from
behind the half-open shutters of her bedroom. Sipiagin waved his hand to
her from the carriage.

"Are you quite comfortable, Mr. Paklin? Go on!"

"Je vous recommande mon frere, epargnez-le!" Valentina Mihailovna said.

"Soyez tranquille!" Kollomietzev exclaimed, glancing up at her quickly
from under the brim of his travelling cap--one of his own special design
with a cockade in it--"C'est surtout l'autre, qu'il faut pincer!"

"Go on!" Sipiagin exclaimed again. "You are not cold, Mr. Paklin? Go
on!"

The two carriages rolled away.

For about ten minutes neither Sipiagin nor Paklin pronounced a single
word. The unfortunate Sila, in his shabby little coat and crumpled cap,
looked even more wretched than usual in contrast to the rich background
of dark blue silk with which the carriage was upholstered. He looked
around in silence at the delicate pale blue blinds, which flew up
instantly at the mere press of a button, at the soft white sheep-skin
rug at their feet, at the mahogany box in front with a movable desk for
letters and even a shelf for books. (Boris Andraevitch never worked in
his carriage, but he liked people to think that he did, after the manner
of Thiers, who always worked when travelling.) Paklin felt shy. Sipiagin
glanced at him once or twice over his clean-shaven cheek, and with a
pompous deliberation pulled out of a side-pocket a silver cigar-case
with a curly monogram and a Slavonic band and offered him... really
offered him a cigar, holding it gently between the second and third
fingers of a hand neatly clad in an English glove of yellow dogskin.

"I don't smoke," Paklin muttered.

"Really!" Sipiagin exclaimed and lighted the cigar himself, an excellent
regalia.

"I must tell you... my dear Mr. Paklin," he began, puffing gracefully
at his cigar and sending out delicate rings of delicious smoke, "that I
am... really... very grateful to you. I might have... seemed... a
little severe... last night... wh