'You're not angry with me? You don't think I, too, have been showing off to you? No, you don't think that,' she went on, before Nezhdanov could answer her in any way. 'You see, you are, like me, unhappy, and your nature, too, is . . . bad, like mine. To-morrow we will go to the school together, for we are friends now, you know.'
As Marianna and Nezhdanov approached the house, Valentina Mihalovna watched them with a spy-glass from the balcony, and with her usual sweet smile she slowly shook her head; then returning through the open glass door into the drawing-room, where Sipyagin was already seated at preference with the toothless neighbour, who had dropped in for tea, she observed in a loud, drawling tone, each syllable distinct: 'How damp the night air is! it's dangerous!'
Marianna glanced at Nezhdanov, while Sipyagin, who had just taken a point from his partner, cast a truly ministerial glance, sidelong and upwards, upon his wife, and then transferred this same cool, sleepy, but penetrating look to the young couple coming in from the dark garden.
155
