say to me: "Say what you like, there is something inexplicable,
fascinating, in a title. . . ."

She dreamed of a title, of a brilliant position, and at the same
time she did not want to let me go. However one may dream of
ambassadors one's heart is not a stone, and one has wistful feelings
for one's youth. Ariadne tried to fall in love, made a show of being
in love, and even swore that she loved me. But I am a highly strung
and sensitive man; when I am loved I feel it even at a distance,
without vows and assurances; at once I felt as it were a coldness
in the air, and when she talked to me of love, it seemed to me as
though I were listening to the singing of a metal nightingale.
Ariadne was herself aware that she was lacking in something. She
was vexed and more than once I saw her cry. Another time--can you
imagine it?--all of a sudden she embraced me and kissed me. It
happened in the evening on the river-bank, and I saw by her eyes
that she did not love me, but was embracing me from curiosity, to
test herself and to see what came of it. And I felt dreadful. I
took her hands and said to her in despair: "These caresses without
love cause me suffering!"

"What a queer fellow you are!" she said with annoyance, and walked
away.

Another year or two might have passed, and in all probability I
should have married her, and so my story would have ended, but fate
was pleased to arrange our romance differently. It happened that a
new personage appeared on our horizon. Ariadne's brother had a visit
from an old university friend called Mihail Ivanitch Lubkov, a
charming man of whom coachmen and footmen used to say: "An entertaining