“What on earth is one to make of a girl like that?” said Varia.
Gania, little as he felt inclined for swagger at this moment, could not avoid showing his triumph, especially just after such humiliating remarks as those of Hippolyte. A smile of self-satisfaction beamed on his face, and Varia too was brimming over with delight.
“And this is the very day that they were to announce the engagement! What will she do next?”
“What do you suppose she wants to talk about tomorrow?” asked Gania.
“Oh, that’s all the same! The chief thing is that she wants to see you after six months’ absence. Look here, Gania, this is a serious business. Don’t swagger again and lose the game—play carefully, but don’t funk, do you understand? As if she could possibly avoid seeing what I have been working for all this last six months! And just imagine, I was there this morning and not a word of this! I was there, you know, on the sly. The old lady did not know, or she would have kicked me out. I ran some risk for you, you see. I did so want to find out, at all hazards.”
Here there was a frantic noise upstairs once more; several people seemed to be rushing downstairs at once.
“Now, Gania,” cried Varia, frightened, “we can’t let him go out! We can’t afford to have a breath of scandal about the town at this moment. Run after him and beg his pardon—quick.”
But the father of the family was out in the road already. Colia was carrying his bag for him; Nina Alexandrovna stood and cried on the doorstep; she wanted to run after the general, but Ptitsin kept her back.
“You will only excite him more,” he said. “He has nowhere else to go to—he’ll be back here in half an hour. I’ve talked it all over with Colia; let him play the fool a bit, it will do him good.”
“What are you up to? Where are you off to? You’ve nowhere to go to, you know,” cried Gania, out of the window.