“Come in, Másha,” he said to his wife.

She went in and sat down by her husband.

“I did not notice him following me,” she said timidly. “I just looked in.”

Holding his little girl with one arm, Nikoláy glanced at his wife and, seeing her guilty expression, put his other arm around her and kissed her hair.

“May I kiss Mamma?” he asked Natásha.

Natásha smiled bashfully.

“Again!” she commanded, pointing with a peremptory gesture to the spot where Nikoláy had placed the kiss.

“I don’t know why you think I am cross,” said Nikoláy, replying to the question he knew was in his wife’s mind.

“You have no idea how unhappy, how lonely, I feel when you are like that. It always seems to me⁠ ⁠…”