Then had come the night of the birthday party, and suspicion had at once flamed up again.  She was torn that night and for days afterwards with a raging jealousy.

She hated Vera, she hated Lawrence, she hated herself.  Then again her mood had changed.  It was, after all, natural that he should have gone to protect Vera; she was his hostess; he was English, and did not know how trivial a Russian scene of temper was.  He had meant nothing, and poor Vera, touched that at her matronly age any one should show her attention, had looked at him gratefully.

That was all.  She loved Vera; she would not hurt her with such ridiculous suspicions, and, on that Friday evening when Semyonov had come to see me, she had been her old self again, behaving to Vera with all the tenderness and charm and affection that were her most delightful gifts.

On this Sunday morning she was reassured; she was gay and happy and pleased with the whole world.  The excitement of the disturbances of the last two days provided an emotional background, not too thrilling to be painful, because, after all, these riots would, as usual, come to nothing, but it was pleasant to feel that the world was buzzing, and that without paying a penny one might see a real cinematograph show simply by walking down the Nevski.

I do not know, of course, what exactly happened that morning until Semyonov came in, but I can see the Markovitch family, like ten thousand other Petrograd families, assembling somewhere about eleven o’clock round the Samovar, all in various stages of undress, all sleepy and pale-faced, and a little befogged, as all good Russians are when, through the exigencies of sleep, they’ve been compelled to allow their ideas to escape from them for a considerable period.  They discussed, of course, the disturbances, and I can imagine Markovitch portentously announcing that “It was all over, he had the best of reasons-for knowing....”

As he once explained to me, he was at his worst on Sunday, because he was then so inevitably reminded of his lost youth.

“It’s a gloomy day, Ivan Andreievitch, for all those who have not quite done what they expected.  The bells ring, and you feel that they ought to mean something to you, but of course one’s gone past all that....  But it’s a pity....”

Nina’s only thought that morning was that Lawrence was coming in the afternoon to take her for a walk.  She had arranged it all.  After a very evident hint from her he had suggested it.  Vera had refused, because some aunts were coming to call, and finally it had been arranged that after the walk Lawrence should bring Nina home, stay to half-past six dinner, and that then they should all go to the French theatre.  I also was asked to dinner and the theatre.  Nina was sure that something must happen that afternoon.  It would be a crisis....  She felt within her such vitality, such power, such domination, that she believed that to-day she could command anything....  She was, poor child, supremely confident, and that not through conceit or vanity, but simply because she was a fatalist and believed that destiny had brought Lawrence to her feet....