Meanwhile Panshine assumed an air of mystery and maintained silence,
looking in a different direction with a grave expression on his face.
"Why I fancy it must be past eleven!" observed Maria Dmitrievna.
Her guests understood the hint and began to take leave. Varvara was
obliged to promise to come and dine to-morrow, and to bring Ada with
her. Gedeonovsky, who had all but gone to sleep as he sat in a corner,
offered to escort her home. Panshine bowed gravely to all the party;
afterwards, as he stood on the steps after seeing Varvara into her
carriage, he gave her hand a gentle pressure, and exclaimed, as
she drove away, "_Au revoir_!" Gedeonovsky sat by her side in the
carriage, and all the way home she amused herself by putting the tip
of her little foot, as if by accident, on his foot. He felt abashed,
and tried to make her complimentary speeches. She tittered, and made
eyes at him when the light from the street lamps shone Into the
carriage. The waltz she had played rang in her ears and excited her.
Wherever she might be she had only to imagine a ballroom and a blaze
of light, and swift circling round to the sound of music, and her
heart would burn within her, her eyes would glow with a strange
lustre, a smile would wander around her lips, a kind of bacchanalian
grace would seem to diffuse itself over her whole body.
When they arrived at her house Varvara lightly bounded from the
carriage, as only a _lionne_ could bound, turned towards Gedeonovsky,
and suddenly burst out laughing in his face.
"A charming creature," thought the councillor of state, as he made his
way home to his lodgings, where his servant was waiting for him with a
bottle of opodeldoc. "It's as well that I'm a steady man--But why did
she laugh?"
All that night long Marfa Timofeevna sat watching by Liza's bedside.