“Well, as regards vice there will always be plenty of that,” observed Ivanoff, and although no one thought such a remark either witty or wise, it provoked hearty laughter.
As they were having tea, it was the sunset hour. The river gleamed like gold, and through the trees fell slanting rays of warm red light.
“Now for the boat!” cried Lida, as, holding up her skirts, she ran down to the river-bank. “Who’ll get there first?”
Some ran after her, while others followed at a more leisurely pace, and amid much laughter they all got into a large painted boat.
“Let her go!” cried Lida, in a merry voice of command. The boat slid away from the shore leaving behind it two broad stripes on the water that disappeared in ripples at the river’s edge.
“Yourii Nicolaijevitch, why are you so silent?” asked Lida.
Yourii smiled. “I’ve got nothing to say.”
“Impossible!” she answered, with a pretty pout, throwing back her head as if she knew that all men thought her irresistible.
“Yourii doesn’t like talking nonsense,” said Semenoff. “He requires….”
“A serious subject, is that it?” exclaimed Lida, interrupting.
“Look! there is a serious subject!” said Sarudine, pointing to the shore.
Where the bank was steep, between the gnarled roots of a rugged oak one could see a narrow aperture, dark and mysterious, which was partially hidden by weeds and grasses.
“What is that?” asked Schafroff, who was unfamiliar with this part of the country.
“The devil only knows! They say that once it was a coiners’ den. As usual they were all caught. Rather hard lines, wasn’t it?” said Ivanoff.
“Perhaps you’d like to start a business of that sort yourself and manufacture sham twenty-copeck pieces?” asked Novikoff.
“Copecks? Not I! Roubles, my friend, roubles!”
“H—m!” muttered Sarudine, shrugging his shoulders. He did not like Ivanoff, whose jokes to him were unintelligible.
“Yes, they were all caught, and the cave was filled up; it gradually collapsed, and no one ever goes into it now. As a child I often used to creep in there. It is a most interesting place.”
“Interesting? I should rather think so!” exclaimed Lida.
“Victor Sergejevitsch, suppose you go in? You’re one of the brave ones.”
“Why?” asked Sarudine, somewhat perplexed.