" Sit down, sit down! Sit down, Michael Ianovich!" He indicated a place beside him to his daughter-in-law.

A footman moved the chair for her.

"Ho, ho!" said the old man, casting his eyes on her rounded figure.

" You've been in a hurry.

That's bad!" He laughed in his usual dry, cold, unpleasant way, with his lips only and not with his eyes.