All she could say was: "You are Mr. Razumov." A slight
frown passed over his forehead. After a short, watchful pause, he made a
little bow of assent, and waited.
At the thought that she had before her the man so highly regarded by her
brother, the man who had known his value, spoken to him, understood him,
had listened to his confidences, perhaps had encouraged him--her lips
trembled, her eyes ran full of tears; she put out her hand, made a step
towards him impulsively, saying with an effort to restrain her emotion,
"Can't you guess who I am?" He did not take the proffered hand. He
even recoiled a pace, and Miss Haldin imagined that he was unpleasantly
affected. Miss Haldin excused him, directing her displeasure at
herself. She had behaved unworthily, like an emotional French girl.
A manifestation of that kind could not be welcomed by a man of stern,
self-contained character.
He must have been stern indeed, or perhaps very timid with women, not
to respond in a more human way to the advances of a girl like Nathalie
Haldin--I thought to myself. Those lofty and solitary existences (I
remembered the words suddenly) make a young man shy and an old man
savage--often.
"Well," I encouraged Miss Haldin to proceed.
She was still very dissatisfied with herself.
"I went from bad to worse," she said, with an air of discouragement very
foreign to her.
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