“No, I’m quite well,” she said, getting up and pressing his outstretched hand tightly. “I did not expect⁠ ⁠… thee.”

“Mercy! what cold hands!” he said.

“You startled me,” she said. “I’m alone, and expecting Seryozha; he’s out for a walk; they’ll come in from this side.”

But, in spite of her efforts to be calm, her lips were quivering.

“Forgive me for coming, but I couldn’t pass the day without seeing you,” he went on, speaking French, as he always did to avoid using the stiff Russian plural form, so impossibly frigid between them, and the dangerously intimate singular.

“Forgive you? I’m so glad!”

“But you’re ill or worried,” he went on, not letting go her hands and bending over her. “What were you thinking of?”