On the other hand, the Captain of Police and Zavalshévsky were exhorting Toúrbin. “Never mind, Count; he’s only a child. He gets flogged still; he’s only sixteen.⁠ ⁠… What can have happened to him? What bee has stung him? And his father such a respectable man⁠—a candidate of ours.”

“Well, let him go to the devil, if he does not wish⁠ ⁠…”

And the Count returned to the ballroom and danced the ecossaise with the pretty widow as gaily as before, laughed with all his heart as he watched the steps performed by the gentlemen who had come out of the study with him, and burst into peals of laughter that rang across the room when the Captain of Police slipped and measured his full length in the midst of the dancers.