I was as happy as a fish in water, and I could have stayed in that room for ever, have never left that place.
Her eyelids were slowly lifted, and once more her clear eyes shone kindly upon me, and again she smiled.
'How you look at me!' she said slowly, and she held up a threatening finger.
I blushed ... 'She understands it all, she sees all,' flashed through my mind. 'And how could she fail to understand and see it all?'
All at once there was a sound in the next room--the clink of a sabre.
'Zina!' screamed the princess in the drawing-room, 'Byelovzorov has brought you a kitten.'
'A kitten!' cried Zinaïda, and getting up from her chair impetuously, she flung the ball of worsted on my knees and ran away.
I too got up and, laying the skein and the ball of wool on the window-sill, I went into the drawing-room and stood still, hesitating. In the middle of the room, a tabby kitten was lying with outstretched paws; Zinaïda was on her knees before it, cautiously lifting up its little face. Near the old princess, and filling up almost the whole space between the two windows, was a flaxen curly-headed young man, a hussar, with a rosy face and prominent eyes.
'What a funny little thing!' Zinaïda was saying; 'and its eyes are not grey, but green, and what long ears! Thank you, Viktor Yegoritch! you are very kind.'
The hussar, in whom I recognised one of the young men I had seen the evening before, smiled and bowed with a clink of his spurs and a jingle of the chain of his sabre.
'You were pleased to say yesterday that you wished to possess a tabby kitten with long ears ... so I obtained it. Your word is law.' And he bowed again.
The kitten gave a feeble mew and began sniffing the ground.
'It's hungry!' cried Zinaïda. 'Vonifaty, Sonia! bring some milk.'
A maid, in an old yellow gown with a faded kerchief at her neck, came in with a saucer of milk and set it before the kitten. The kitten started, blinked, and began lapping.
'What a pink little tongue it has!' remarked Zinaïda, putting her head almost on the ground and peeping at it sideways under its very nose.
The kitten having had enough began to purr and move its paws affectedly. Zinaïda got up, and turning to the maid said carelessly, 'Take it away.'
'For the kitten--your little hand,' said the hussar, with a simper and a shrug of his strongly-built frame, which was tightly buttoned up in a new uniform.