I should come.

"I beg your pardon," I said softly. "I am so glad you have not gone yet,
Ivan Ivanitch. I forgot to ask you, do you know the Christian name of
the president of our Zemstvo?"

"Andrey Stanislavovitch. Yes...."

"_Merci_," I said, took out my notebook, and wrote it down.

There followed a silence during which my wife and Ivan Ivanitch were
probably waiting for me to go; my wife did not believe that I wanted to
know the president's name--I saw that from her eyes.

"Well, I must be going, my beauty," muttered Ivan Ivanitch, after I
had walked once or twice across the drawing-room and sat down by the
fireplace.

"No," said Natalya Gavrilovna quickly, touching his hand. "Stay another
quarter of an hour.... Please do!"

Evidently she did not wish to be left alone with me without a witness.

"Oh, well, I'll wait a quarter of an hour, too," I thought.

"Why, it's snowing!" I said, getting up and looking out of window. "A
good fall of snow! Ivan Ivanitch"--I went on walking about the room--"I
do regret not being a sportsman. I can imagine what a pleasure it must
be coursing hares or hunting wolves in snow like this!"