All at once there was a sound in the next room – the clink of a sabre.
'Zina!' screamed the princess in the drawing-room, 'Byelovzorov has brought you a kitten.'
'A kitten!' cried Zinaida, and getting up from her chair impetuously, she flung the ball of worsted on my knees and ran away.
I too got up and, laying the skein and the ball of wool on the window-sill, I went into the drawing-room and stood still, hesitating.
In the middle of the room, a tabby kitten was lying with outstretched paws; Zinaida was on her knees before it, cautiously lifting up its little face.
Near the old princess, and filling up almost the whole space between the two windows, was a flaxen curly-headed young man, a hussar, with a rosy face and prominent eyes.
'What a funny little thing!' Zinaida was saying; 'and its eyes are not grey, but green, and what long ears! Thank you, Viktor Yegoritch! you are very kind.'
The hussar, in whom I recognised one of the young men I had seen the evening before, smiled and bowed with a clink of his spurs and a jingle of the chain of his sabre.
'You were pleased to say yesterday that you wished to possess a tabby kitten with long ears ... so I obtained it. Your word is law.' And he bowed again.
The kitten gave a feeble mew and began sniffing the ground.