were looking at him just as in those days in the little house in Moscow.
'Irina Pavlovna,' he uttered irresolutely.
'You know me? How glad I am! how glad'
She stopped short, slightly blushing, and drew herself up.
'This is a very pleasant meeting,' she continued now in French. 'Let me introduce you to my husband. Valérien, Monsieur Litvinov, un ami d'enfance; Valerian Vladimirovitch Ratmirov, my husband.'
One of the young generals, almost the most elegant of all, got up from his seat, and with excessive courtesy bowed to Litvinov, while the rest of his companions faintly knitted their brows, or rather each of them withdrew for an instant into himself, as though protesting betimes against any contact with an extraneous civilian, and the other ladies taking part in the picnic thought fit to screw up their eyes a little and simper, and even to assume an air of perplexity.
'Have you—er—been long in Baden?' asked General Ratmirov, with a dandified air utterly un-Russian. He obviously did not know what to talk about with the friend of his wife's childhood.
'No, not long!' replied Litvinov.
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