Nenila Makarievna did not keep her in restraint.
One morning at twelve o'clock the whole family of the Perekatovs were in the drawing-room. The husband in a round green coat, a high check cravat, and pea-green trousers with straps, was standing at the window, very busily engaged in catching flies. The daughter was sitting at her embroidery frame; her small dimpled little hand rose and fell slowly and gracefully over the canvas. Nenila Makarievna was sitting on the sofa, gazing in silence at the floor.
'Did you send an invitation to the regiment at Kirilovo, Sergei Sergeitch?' she asked her husband.
'For this evening? To be sure I did, ma chère.' (He was under the strictest orders not to call her 'little mother.') 'To be sure!'
'There are positively no gentlemen,' pursued Nenila Makarievna. 'Nobody for the girls to dance with.'
Her husband sighed, as though crushed by the absence of partners.
'Mamma,' Masha began all at once, 'is Monsieur Lutchkov asked?'
'What Lutchkov?'
'He's an officer too. They say he's a very interesting person.'
'How's that?'
