She herself could never have cared seriously for
any one had there been no return. Her pride would not have allowed
her....
But Nina had been the charge of her life. Before Nicholas, before her
own life, before everything. Nina was her duty, her sacred cause--and
now she was betraying her trust! Something must be done--but what? but
what? She knew Nina well enough to realise that a false step would only
plunge her farther than ever into the business. It must have seemed to
her indeed that because of her own initial disloyalty the whole world
was falling away from her.
Then there came Semyonov; I did not at this time at all sufficiently
realise that her hatred of her uncle--for it _was_ hatred, more, much
more than mere dislike--had been with her all her life. Many months
afterwards she told me that she could never remember a time when she had
not hated him. He had teased her when she was a very little girl,
laughing at her naive honesty, throwing doubts on her independence,
cynically ridiculing her loyalty. There had been one horrible winter
month (then ten or eleven years of age) when she had been sent to stay
with him in Moscow.
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