Her brother’s voice had an alarming effect upon Lida. Her nerves, wrought to the utmost pitch by her inward conflict, suddenly gave way. She became giddy; everything swam before her eyes, and she no longer knew if she were in the water or on the river-bank. Sanine had just time to seize her firmly and drag her backwards, secretly pleased at his own strength and adroitness.
He placed her in a sitting posture against the hedge, and then looked about him.
“What shall I do with her?” he thought. Lida in that moment recovered consciousness, as pale and confused, she began to weep piteously. “My God! My God!” she sobbed, like a child.
“Silly thing!” said Sanine, chiding her good-humouredly.
Lida did not hear him, but, as he moved, she clutched at his arm, sobbing more violently.
“Ah! what am I doing?” she thought fearfully. “I ought not to weep; I must try and laugh it off, or else he’ll guess what is wrong.”
“Well, why are you so upset?” asked Sanine, as he patted her shoulder tenderly.
Lida looked up at him under her hat, timidly as a child, and stopped crying.
“I know all about it,” said Sanine; “the whole story. I’ve done so for ever so long.”
Though Lida was aware that several persons suspected the nature of her relations with Sarudine, yet when Sanine said this, it was as if he had struck her in the face. Her supple form recoiled in horror; she gazed at him dry-eyed, like some wild animal at bay.
“What’s the matter, now? You behave as if I had trodden on your foot,” laughed Sanine. Taking hold of her round, soft shoulders, which quivered at his touch, he tenderly drew her back to her former place by the hedge, and she obediently submitted.
“Come now, what is it that distresses you so?” he said. “Is it because I know all? Or do you think your misconduct with Sarudine so dreadful that you are afraid to acknowledge it? I really don’t understand you. But, if Sarudine won’t marry you, well—that is a thing to be thankful for. You know now, and you must have known before, what a base, common fellow he really is, in spite of his good looks and his fitness for amours. All that he has is beauty, and you have now had your fill of that.”
“He of mine, not I of his!” she faltered. “Ah! well yes, perhaps I had! Oh! my God, what shall I do?”