“Would you believe it, that young lady gave me a rendezvous!”
“What are you saying?” cried Pólozof, jumping out of bed.
“No, but listen.”
“But how? When? It’s impossible!”
“Why, while you were adding up after we played Préférence, she told me she would sit by the window in the night, and that one could get in at the window. There, you see what it is to be practical! While you were calculating with the old woman, I arranged that little matter. Why, you heard, she even said in your presence that she would sit by the window tonight and look at the pond.”
“Yes, but she did not mean that.”
“There now, that’s just what I can’t make out: did she say it intentionally or not? Maybe really she did not wish to agree so suddenly, but it looked very like it. It turned out horribly. I quite played the fool,” he added, smiling contemptuously at himself.
“What do you mean? Where have you been?”
The Count, omitting his manifold irresolute approaches, related all as it had happened. “I spoilt it all myself: I ought to have been bolder. She screamed and ran from the window.”
“So she screamed and ran away,” said the Cornet, smiling uneasily in answer to the Count’s smile, which for such a long time had had so strong an influence over him.
“Yes, but it’s time to go to sleep.”
The Cornet again turned his back to the door and lay silent for about ten minutes. Heaven knows what went on in his soul, but when he turned