It was difficult for him, of course, but what did he expect the girl to do?
Could he have supposed for a single moment that she would remain?
Could it be possible that he knew her so little as that?
And why make a scene now before Semyonov when he obviously could do nothing?
I knew, moreover, with a certainty that was almost ironic in its clarity, that Marie Ivanovna did not love, did not, perhaps, even care for him.

By what moment in Petrograd, a moment flaming with their high purposes and the purple shadows of a Russian "white night," had she been entranced into some glorious vision of him?
On the very day that followed, she had known, I was convinced, her mistake.

At the station she had known it, and instead of the fine Sir Galahad "without reproach" of the previous night she saw some figure that, had she been English born, would have appeared to her as Alice's White Knight perchance, or at best the warm-hearted Uncle Toby, or that most Christian of English heroes--Parson Adams.

I could imagine that life had been so impulsive, so straightforward, so simple a thing to her that this sudden implication in an affair complicated and even dishonest caused her bitter disquiet.

Looking back now I could trace again and again the sudden flashes, through her happiness, of this distress.
He perhaps should have perceived it, but I could understand that he could not believe that his treasure had at last after all these years been given to him for so brief a moment.