Yet this was only just a passing thought, for in reality he would on no
account have wished to exchange his own spiritual tortures for the
feather-brain existence of a Lialia.

"Yourii! Yourii!" she exclaimed in a shrill voice though she was not
more than three paces distant from him. Laughing roguishly, she handed
him a little rose-coloured missive.

Yourii suspected something.

"From whom?" he asked, sharply, "From Sinotschka Karsavina," said Lialia, shaking her finger at him,
significantly.

Yourii blushed deeply. To receive through his sister a little pink,
scented letter like this seemed utterly silly; in fact ridiculous. It
positively annoyed him. Lialia, as she walked beside him, prattled in
sentimental fashion about his attachment to Sina, just as sisters will,
who are intensely interested in their brothers' love-affairs. She said
how fond she was of Sina, and how delighted she would be if they made a
match of it, and got married.

At the luckless word "married," Yourii's face grew redder still, and in
his eyes there was a malevolent look. He saw before him an entire
romance of the usual provincial type; rose-pink billets-doux, sisters
as confidantes, orthodox matrimony, with its inevitable commonplace
sequel, home, wife, and babies--the one thing on earth that he dreaded
most.

"Oh! Enough of all that twaddle, please!" he said in so sharp a tone
that Lialia was amazed.

"Don't make such a fuss!" she exclaimed, pettishly. "If you are in
love, what does it matter? I can't think why you always pose as such an
extraordinary hero."