et puis, it is your vocation, Vladimir Nikolaich, to do everything en grand." This was too much even for Panshin: he grew confused and changed the conversation.

He tried to turn it upon the beauty of the starlit sky, the music of Schubert; nothing was successful.

He ended by proposing to Marya Dmitrievna a game of picquet.

"What! on such an evening ?" she replied feebly.

She ordered the cards to be brought in, however.