Page:Andreyev - The Little Angel (Knopf, 1916).djvu/227

Rh walked briskly and kept looking around, and when she noticed her pursuer she started to run, thus naïvely betraying her helplessness. Mitrofan also started to run after her, and now in the dark, unfamiliar, side street, where there were no other people but they, he and the girl, running, he was seized with a strange feeling; he felt that he was too much of a spy, and he even became frightened.

"I must end this matter at once," he thought, running quickly, out of breath, but, for some reason, not daring to run at full speed.

At the entrance of a many storied house the student girl stopped, and while she was tugging at the knob of the heavy door Mitrofan Krilov overtook her and looked at her face with a generous smile in order to show her that the joke was ended, and that all was well. But breathing with difficulty, she passed into the half opened door, hurling at his smiling face:

"Scoundrel!"

And she disappeared. Through the glass her silhouette flashed—and then she disappeared completely. Still smiling generously, Mitrofan touched the cold knob of the door, made an attempt to open it, but in the hallway, under the staircase, he saw the porter's galoons, and he walked away slowly. He stopped a few steps away and for about two minutes stood shrugging his shoulders. He adjusted his spectacles with dignity, threw his head back and thought: