"Well, little Asya, what have you been doing?" he asked.
"When you went out to Olya Golovkina Mummy and I played tig."
The next morning, when Olya came into the office for business as
usual, she exclaimed joyfully:
"My aunt has not found out anything. She opened the door for me
without lighting the lamp, and as she groped through the passage I
ran quickly past her. Then I changed my clothes and appeared at
supper as though nothing had happened!"
A willow-reed blown by the wind!
In the office were many telephone calls and the rattling of counting-
boards. Agrenev and Olya sat together and arranged when to meet
again. She did not want to go to the Ravine because of the shepherd
boys' rude remarks. Alexander Alexandrovitch did not tell her all was
known at home. As she said goodby she clung to him like a reed in the
wind and whispered:
"I have been awake all night. You have noticed surely that I have not
called you by any name; I have no name for you."
And she begged him not to forget to bring her some books.
All that was known of the town was that it lay at the intersection of
such and such a latitude and longitude. But articles on the factory
were printed each year in the industrial magazines, and also
occasionally in the newspapers, as when the workmen struck or were
buried under a fall of limestone.
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