"No, Mamma, but I'm so sorry for him.

I don't know how I'm to say it.

" "And there's nothing for you to say.

I shall speak to him myself," said the countess, indignant that they should have dared to treat this little Natasha as grown up.

"No, not on any account! I will tell him myself, and you'll listen at the door," and Natasha ran across the drawing room to the dancing hall, where Denisov was sitting on the same chair by the clavichord with his face in his hands.