Lemm stopped still.

"It's no matter," he said in Russian, and then added in his native
tongue,--"But he is utterly incapable of understanding it. How is it
you don't see that? He is a _dilettante_--that is all."

"You are unjust towards him," replied Liza. "He understands every
thing, and can do almost every thing himself."

"Yes, every thing second-rate--poor goods, scamped work. But that
pleases, and he pleases, and he is well content with that. Well, then,
bravo!--But I am not angry. I and that cantata, we are both old fools!
I feel a little ashamed, but it's no matter."

"Forgive me, Christopher Fedorovich!" urged Liza anew.

"It's no matter, no matter," he repeated a second time in Russian.
"You are a good girl.--Here is some one coming to pay you a visit.
Good-bye. You are a very good girl."

And Lemm made his way with hasty steps to the gate, through which
there was passing a gentleman who was a stranger to him, dressed in a
grey paletot and a broad straw hat. Politely saluting him (he bowed
to every new face in O., and always turned away his head from his
acquaintances in the street--such was the rule he had adopted), Lemm
went past him, and disappeared behind the wall.

The stranger gazed at him as he retired with surprise, then looked at
Liza, and then went straight up to her.