“Is he mad?” asked Madame Epanchin suddenly.
“No, he …”
“Perhaps he is drunk? Your company is rather peculiar,” she added, with a glance at the other guests. … “But what a pretty girl! Who is she?”
“That is Lebedeff’s daughter—Vera Lukianovna.”
“Indeed? She looks very sweet. I should like to make her acquaintance.”
The words were hardly out of her mouth, when Lebedeff dragged Vera forward, in order to present her.
“Orphans, poor orphans!” he began in a pathetic voice.
“The child she carries is an orphan, too. She is Vera’s sister, my daughter Luboff. The day this babe was born, six weeks ago, my wife died, by the will of God Almighty. … Yes … Vera takes her mother’s place, though she is but her sister … nothing more … nothing more …”
“And you! You are nothing more than a fool, if you’ll excuse me! Well! well! you know that yourself, I expect,” said the lady indignantly.
Lebedeff bowed low. “It is the truth,” he replied, with extreme respect.
“Oh, Mr. Lebedeff, I am told you lecture on the Apocalypse. Is it true?” asked Aglaya.
“Yes, that is so … for the last fifteen years.”
“I have heard of you, and I think read of you in the newspapers.”