Page:Andreyev - The Little Angel (Knopf, 1916).djvu/221

Rh Krilov while the car slowly passed a small station. He stood on the platform, opposite the girl, and to while his time away he scrutinized her, somewhat fastidiously and inimically, as a very simple and familiar algebraic formula written in chalk upon the blackboard, which stared at him persistently. At first he felt cheerful, like everyone else who looked at the girl, but this feeling did not last long—there were causes which killed all cheerfulness in him.

"She must have come recently from some provincial town," he remarked to himself sternly. "And why the deuce do they come here? I would gladly have run away from here to the most deserted spot, to the end of the world. I suppose she is occupied with all sorts of serious discussions and convictions, and, of course, cannot sew a ribbon around her skirt. She doesn't bother with such things. What hurts me most is that such a good looking girl should be like that." The girl noticed his cross look and became confused, more confused than is usual under such circumstances; the smile vanished from her eyes, an expression of childish fear and perplexity appeared on her face, and her left hand quickly moved up to her chest and stopped there, clutching something.

"See!" Mitrofan wondered, looking aside, and his face assumed an apathetic expression. "She was frightened by my blue eyeglasses. She thinks that I am a detective; she is carrying some