“And so you will not tell me?” A muscle twitched in her face and she pushed back the chair she was holding.  “Well then, come!” She shook her head as if to expel useless thoughts, and, faster than usual, went on in front of him.

He fancied that her mouth was unnaturally compressed in order to keep back the tears.  He was ashamed of having hurt her, and yet he knew that the least weakness on his part would mean disaster, i.e., would bind him to her.  And to-day he feared this more than anything, and silently followed her to the princess’s cabinet.

CHAPTER XXVII.

Missy’s mother.

Princess Sophia Vasilievna, Missy’s mother, had finished her very elaborate and nourishing dinner. (She had it always alone, that no one should see her performing this unpoetical function.) By her couch stood a small table with her coffee, and she was smoking a pachitos.  Princess Sophia Vasilievna was a long, thin woman, with dark hair, large black eyes and long teeth, and still pretended to be young.

Her intimacy with the doctor was being talked about.  Nekhludoff had known that for some time; but when he saw the doctor sitting by her couch, his oily, glistening beard parted in the middle, he not only remembered the rumours about them, but felt greatly disgusted.  By the table, on a low, soft, easy chair, next to Sophia Vasilievna, sat Kolosoff, stirring his coffee.  A glass of liqueur stood on the table.  Missy came in with Nekhludoff, but did not remain in the room.

“When mamma gets tired of you and drives you away, then come to me,” she said, turning to Kolosoff and Nekhludoff, speaking as if nothing had occurred; then she went away, smiling merrily and stepping noiselessly on the thick carpet.

“How do you do, dear friend?  Sit down and talk,” said Princess Sophia Vasilievna, with her affected but very naturally-acted smile, showing her fine, long teeth—­a splendid imitation of what her own had once been.  “I hear that you have come from the Law Courts very much depressed.  I think it must be very trying to a person with a heart,” she added in French.

“Yes, that is so,” said Nekhludoff.  “One often feels one’s own de—­one feels one has no right to judge.”

“Comme, c’est vrai,” she cried, as if struck by the truth of this remark.  She was in the habit of artfully flattering all those with whom she conversed.  “Well, and what of your picture?  It does interest me so.  If I were not such a sad invalid I should have been to see it long ago,” she said.

“I have quite given it up,” Nekhludoff replied drily.  The falseness of her flattery seemed as evident to him to-day as her age, which she was trying to conceal, and he could not put himself into the right state to behave politely.

“Oh, that is a pity!  Why, he has a real talent for art; I have it from Repin’s own lips,” she added, turning to Kolosoff.