It was not yet two, when the large glass doors of the boardroom suddenly opened and someone came in.

All the officials sitting on the further side under the portrait of the Tsar and the eagle, delighted at any distraction, looked round at the door; but the doorkeeper standing at the door at once drove out the intruder, and closed the glass door after him.

When the case had been read through, Stepan Arkadyevitch got up and stretched, and by way of tribute to the liberalism of the times took out a cigarette in the boardroom and went into his private room.

Two of the members of the board, the old veteran in the service, Nikitin, and the _Kammerjunker Grinevitch_, went in with him.

"We shall have time to finish after lunch," said Stepan Arkadyevitch.