Page:The Kiss and Other Stories by Anton Tchekhoff, 1908.pdf/154

 Two and a half days later she reached home. Still in her hat and waterproof cloak, panting with excitement, she went through the drawing-room into the dining-room. In his shirt-sleeves, with unbuttoned waistcoat, Duimoff sat at the table and sharpened a knife; on a plate before him was a grouse. As Olga Ivanovna entered the house she resolved to hide the truth from her husband, and felt that she was clever and strong enough to succeed. But when she saw his broad, kindly, happy smile and his bright, joyful eyes, she felt that to deceive such a man would be base and impossible, as impossible as to slander, steal, or kill; and she made up her mind in a second to tell him the whole story. When he had kissed and embraced her she fell upon her knees and hid her face.

“What? What is it, mama!” he asked tenderly. “You got tired of it?”

She raised her face, red with shame, and looked at him guiltily and imploringly. But fear and shame forbade her to tell the truth.

“It is nothing,” she said. “I only. . .”

“Sit down here!” he said, lifting her and seating her at the table. “There we are! Eat the grouse! You are starving, of course, poor child!”

She breathed in greedily her native air and ate the grouse. And Duimoff looked at her with rapture and smiled merrily.