She"s to be mine! Try your hand _there_ if you can! It was nothing but your challenge to me! You may not have known it, but this was so, as I say; and you felt the impulse which I have described. Such a challenge could not be made without hatred; consequently you hate me."
Velchaninoff almost _rushed_ up and down the room as he shouted the above words; and with every syllable the humiliating consciousness that he was allowing himself to descend to the level of Pavel Pavlovitch afflicted him and tormented him more and more!
"I was only anxious to be at peace with you, Alexey Ivanovitch!" said Pavel sadly, his chin and lips working again.
Velchaninoff flew into a violent rage, as if he had been insulted in the most unexampled manner.
"I tell you once more, sir," he cried, "that you have attached yourself to a sick and irritated man, in order that you may surprise him into saying something unseemly in his madness! We are, I tell you, man, we are men of different worlds. Understand me! between us two there is a grave," he hissed in his fury, and stopped.
"And how do you know,-sir," cried Pavel Pavlovitch, his face suddenly becoming all twisted, and deadly white to look at, as he strode up to Velchaninoff, "how do you know what that grave means to me, sir, here!"
(He beat his breast with terrible earnestness, droll though he looked.) "Yes, sir, we both stand on the brink of the grave, but on my side there is more, sir, than on yours-yes, more, more, more!" he hissed, beating his breast without pause-"more than on yours-the grave means more to me than to you!"
But at this moment a loud ring at the bell brought both men to their senses. Someone was ringing so loud that the bell-wire was in danger of snapping.
"People don"t ring like that for me, observed Velchaninoff angrily."
"No more they do for me, sir! I a.s.sure you they don"t!" said Pavel Pavlovitch anxiously. He had become the quiet timid Pavel again in a moment. Velchaninoff frowned and went to open the door.
"Mr. Velchaninoff, if I am not mistaken?" said a strange voice, apparently belonging to some young and very self-satisfied person, at the door.
"What is it?"
"I have been informed that Mr. Trusotsky is at this moment in your rooms.
I must see him at once."
Velchaninoff felt inclined to send this self-satisfied looking young gentleman flying downstairs again; but he reflected-refrained, stood aside and let him in.
"Here is Mr. Trusotsky. Come in."
CHAPTER XIV.
A young fellow of some nineteen summers entered the room; he might have been even younger, to judge by his handsome but self-satisfied and very juvenile face.
He was not badly dressed, at all events his clothes fitted him well; in stature he was a little above the middle height; he had thick black hair, and dark, bold eyes-and these were the striking features of his face.
Unfortunately his nose was a little too broad and tip-tilted, otherwise he would have been a really remarkably good-looking young fellow.-He came in with some pretension.
"I believe I have the opportunity of speaking to Mr. Trusotsky?" he observed deliberately, and bringing out the word opportunity with much apparent satisfaction, as though he wished to accentuate the fact that he could not possibly be supposed to feel either honour or pleasure in meeting Mr. Trusotsky. Velchaninoff thought he knew what all this meant; Pavel Pavlovitch seemed to have an inkling of the state of affairs, too.
His expression was one of anxiety, but he did not show the white feather.
"Not having the honour of your acquaintance," he said with dignity, "I do not understand what sort of business you can have with me."
"Kindly listen to me first, and you can then let me know your ideas on the subject," observed the young gentleman, pulling out his tortoisesh.e.l.l gla.s.ses, and focusing the champagne bottle with them. Having deliberately inspected that object, he put up his gla.s.ses again, and fixing his attention once more upon Pavel Pavlovitch, remarked:
"Alexander Loboff."
"What about Alexander Loboff?"
"That"s my name. You"ve not heard of me?"
"No."
"H"m! Well, I don"t know when you should have, now I think of it; but I"ve come on important business concerning yourself. I suppose I can sit down?
I"m tired."
"Oh, pray sit down," said Velchaninoff, but not before the young man had taken a chair. In spite of the pain at his heart Velchaninoff could not help being interested in this impudent youngling.
There seemed to be something in his good-looking, fresh young face that reminded him of Nadia.
"You can sit down too," observed Loboff, indicating an empty seat to Pavel Pavlovitch, with a careless nod of his head.
"Thank you; I shall stand."
"Very well, but you"ll soon get tired. You need not go away, I think, Mr.
Velchaninoff."
"I have nowhere to go to, my good sir, I am at home."
"As you like; I confess I should prefer your being present while I have an explanation with this gentleman. Nadejda Fedosievna has given you a flattering enough character, sir, to me."
"Nonsense; how could she have had time to do so?"
"Immediately after you left. Now, Mr. Trusotsky, this is what I wish to observe," he continued to Pavel, the latter still standing in front of him; "we, that is Nadejda Fedosievna and myself, have long loved one another, and have plighted our troth. You have suddenly come between us as an obstruction; I have come to tell you that you had better clear out of the way at once. Are you prepared to adopt my suggestion?"
Pavel Pavlovitch took a step backward in amazement; his face paled visibly, but in a moment a spiteful smile curled his lip.
"Not in the slightest degree prepared, sir," he said, laconically.
"Dear me," said the young fellow, settling himself comfortably in his chair, and throwing one leg over the other.
"Indeed, I do not know whom I am speaking to," added Pavel Pavlovitch, "so that it can"t hardly be worth your while to continue."
So saying he sat down at last.
"I _said_ you"d get tired," remarked the youth. "I informed you just now,"
he added, "that my name is Alexander Loboff, and that Nadejda and I have plighted our troth; consequently you cannot truthfully say, as you did say just now, that you don"t know who I am, nor can you honestly a.s.sert that you do not see what we can have to talk about. Not to speak of myself-there is Nadejda Fedosievna to be considered-the lady to whom you have so impudently attached yourself: that alone is matter sufficient for explanation between us."
All this the young fellow rattled off carelessly enough, as if the thing were so self-evident that it hardly needed mentioning. While talking, he raised his eye-gla.s.s once more, and inspected some object for an instant, putting the gla.s.s back in his pocket immediately afterwards.
"Excuse me, young man," began Pavel Pavlovitch: but the words "young man"
were fatal.
"At any other moment," observed the youth, "I should of course forbid your calling me "young man" at once; but you must admit that in this case my youth is my princ.i.p.al advantage over yourself, and that even this very day you would have given anything-nay, at the moment when you presented your bracelet-to be just a little bit younger."
"Cheeky young brat!" muttered Velchaninoff.