“Has anything happened?” she asked. “I am so terrified.”

“No, there is no change. I only came to have a talk about business, Kátish,” 12 muttered the prince, seating himself wearily on the chair she had just vacated. “You have made the place warm, I must say,” he remarked. “Well, sit down: let’s have a talk.”

“I thought perhaps something had happened,” she said with her unchanging stonily severe expression; and, sitting down opposite the prince, she prepared to listen.

“I wished to get a nap, mon cousin , but I can’t.”

“Well, my dear?” said Prince Vasíli, taking her hand and bending it downwards as was his habit.

It was plain that this “well?” referred to much that they both understood without naming.