Page:Leskov - The Sentry and other Stories.djvu/141

 Rh "Look here, Katerina Lvovna, just listen to me," said Sergi the next day on the road. "First understand, I beg you, that I am not your Zinovey Borisych, and secondly that you are no longer the great merchant's wife. So don't blaze up. These grand airs are no good now."

Katerina Lvovna did not answer, and for a week she went along without exchanging a word or a look with Sergei. As the injured party she showed character, and did not want to make the first step towards reconciliation in this, her first quarrel, with Sergei.

In the meantime while Katerina Lvovna was cross with Sergei he began to talk nonsense and joke with fair little Sonetka. Sometimes he would bow to her and say: "Our charmer," or he would smile, or find an opportunity of meeting her, of embracing and pressing her to himself. Katerina Lvovna saw all this and her heart only boiled the more.

"Should I get reconciled to him?" Katerina Lvovna thought as she staggered along, not seeing the ground under her feet.

But now, more than ever, her pride would not allow her to take the first step towards reconciliation. During this time Sergei became more and more intimate with Sonetka, and all began to whisper that the unapproachable Sonetka, who like an eel twirled round everybody's hands without