Besides his comrades and two or three professors, who recognized in him a good worker in the cause of science, his only acquaintances were in the families where he gave lessons; but he did not know the families at all. He avoided familiarity as he would fire, and he held proudly aloof from all the members of these families, except the little boys and girls who were his pupils.
III.
And so Lopukhóf entered the room, saw the company sitting at the tea-table, and in their number was Viérotchka; nu! of course the company, including also Viérotchka, saw that the tutor entered the room. "Please take a seat," said Marya Alekséyevna.—Matrióna, bring another glass."
"If it is meant for me, then I thank you. I don't drink tea."
"Matrióna, no matter about the glass. (A well-bred young man!)—Why shouldn't you drink some? You ought to drink some!"
He looked at Marya Alekséyevna and at Viérotchka willingly, as it were; and maybe it was really willingly. Maybe he noticed that she slightly shrugged her shoulders. "And he must have seen that I blushed!"
"Thank you! I drink tea only at home."
"After all, he is not such a savage; he came in, and he bowed easily and gracefully." Such was the observation made at one end of the table.
"After all, if she is a trifle spoiled, then at least she blushes for her mother's meanness," was the observation at the other end of the table.
But Feódor soon finished his tea and went to take his lesson. The most important result of the evening was that Marya Alekséyevna formed a most favorable opinion of the tutor, because she saw that her sugarbowl would, in all probability, not suffer great loss by changing the hour of the lessons from morning to evening.
Two days later the teacher again found the family at table, and again he refused to take tea, and thus he absolutely calmed Marya Alekséyevna's fears. But this time he saw at the table a new face,—an officer, upon whom Marya Alekséyevna was assiduously fawning.
"Ah, the bridegroom!"
But the bridegroom, owing to the importance of his uni-
