There was one fat red-faced man in a very
tight black coat, who gave his opinion always about food and drink. He
was from Moscow--his name Paul Leontievitch Rozanov--and I met him on a
later occasion of which I shall have to tell in its place. Then there
were two young girls who giggled a great deal and whispered together.
They hung around Nina and stroked her hair and admired her dress, and
laughed at Boris Grogoff and any one else who was near them.
Nina was immensely happy. She loved parties of course, and especially
parties in which she was the hostess. She was like a young kitten or
puppy in a white frock, with her hair tumbling over her eyes. She was
greatly excited, and as joyous as though there were no war, and no
afflicted Russia, and nothing serious in all the world. This was the
first occasion on which I suspected that Grogoff cared for her.
Outwardly he did nothing but chaff and tease her, and she responded in
that quick rather sharp and very often crudely personal way at which
foreigners for the first time in Russian company so often wonder.
Badinage with Russians so quickly passes to lively and noisy
quarrelling, which in its turn so suddenly fades into quiet contented
amiability that it is little wonder that the observer feels rather
breathless at it all.
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