'What a charming creature your younger girl is,' said the visitor; 'a little volcano!'
'Yes, a regular volcano,' said the count. 'Takes after me! And what a voice she has; though she's my daughter, I tell the truth when I say she'll be a singer, a second Salomoni! We have engaged an Italian to give her lessons.'
'Isn't she too young? I have heard that it harms the voice to train it at that age.'
'Oh no, not at all too young!' replied the count. 'Why, our mothers used to be married at twelve or thirteen.'
'And she's in love with Boris already. Just fancy!' said the countess with a gentle smile, looking at Boris' and went on, evidently concerned with a thought that always occupied her: 'Now you see if I were to be severe with her and to forbid it... goodness knows what they might be up to on the sly' (she meant that they would be kissing), 'but as it is, I know every word she utters. She will come running to me of her own accord in the evening and tell me everything. Perhaps I spoil her, but really that seems the best plan. With her elder sister I was stricter.'
'Yes, I was brought up quite differently,' remarked the handsome elder daughter, Countess Vera, with a smile.
But the smile did not enhance Vera's beauty as smiles generally do; on the contrary it gave her an unnatural, and therefore unpleasant, expression. Vera was good-looking, not at all stupid, quick at learning, was well brought up, and had a pleasant voice; what she said was true and appropriate, yet, strange to say, everyone- the visitors and countess alike--turned to look at her as if wondering why she had said it, and they all felt awkward.
'People are always too clever with their eldest children and try to make something exceptional of them,' said the visitor.
'What's the good of denying it, my dear? Our dear countess was too clever with Vera,' said the count. 'Well, what of that? She's turned out splendidly all the same,' he added, winking at Vera.
The guests got up and took their leave, promising to return to dinner.
'What manners! I thought they would never go,' said the countess, when she had seen her guests out.
CHAPTER XIII
When Natasha ran out of the drawing room she only went as far as the conservatory. There she paused and stood listening to the conversation in the drawing room, waiting for Boris to come out. She was already growing impatient, and stamped her foot, ready to cry at his not coming at once, when she heard the young man's discreet steps approaching neither quickly nor slowly. At this Natasha dashed swiftly among the flower tubs and hid there.
Boris paused in the middle of the room, looked round, brushed a little dust from the sleeve of his uniform, and going up to a mirror examined his handsome face. Natasha, very still, peered out from her ambush, waiting to see what he would do. He stood a little while before the glass, smiled, and walked toward the other door. Natasha was about to call him but changed her mind. 'Let him look for me,' thought she. Hardly had Boris gone than Sonya, flushed, in tears, and muttering angrily, came in at the other door. Natasha checked her first impulse to run out to her, and remained in her hiding place, watching--as under an invisible cap--to see what went on in the world. She was experiencing a new and peculiar pleasure. Sonya, muttering to herself, kept looking round toward the drawing- room door. It opened and Nicholas came in.
'Sonya, what is the matter with you? How can you?' said he, running up to her.
'It's nothing, nothing; leave me alone!' sobbed Sonya.
'Ah, I know what it is.'
'Well, if you do, so much the better, and you can go back to her!'
'So-o-onya! Look here! How can you torture me and yourself like that, for a mere fancy?' said Nicholas taking her hand.
Sonya did not pull it away, and left off crying. Natasha, not stirring and scarcely breathing, watched from her ambush with sparkling eyes. 'What will happen now?' thought she.
'Sonya! What is anyone in the world to me? You alone are everything!' said Nicholas. 'And I will prove it to you.'
'I don't like you to talk like that.'
'Well, then, I won't; only forgive me, Sonya!' He drew her to him and kissed her.
'Oh, how nice,' thought Natasha; and when Sonya and Nicholas had gone out of the conservatory she followed and called Boris to her.
'Boris, come here,' said she with a sly and significant look. 'I have something to tell you. Here, here!' and she led him into the conservatory to the place among the tubs where she had been hiding.
Boris followed her, smiling.
'What is the something?' asked he.
She grew confused, glanced round, and, seeing the doll she had thrown down on one of the tubs, picked it up.
'Kiss the doll,' said she.
Boris looked attentively and kindly at her eager face, but did not reply.
'Don't you want to? Well, then, come here,' said she, and went further in among the plants and threw down the doll. 'Closer, closer!' she whispered.
She caught the young officer by his cuffs, and a look of solemnity and fear appeared on her flushed face.
'And me? Would you like to kiss me?' she whispered almost inaudibly, glancing up at him from under her brows,
