“You have fallen into company that will do you no good, Clara. If you are arrested it will break the heart of two families. Is there no soul left in you?”
“What put it into your mind that I should be arrested?” she returned, lugubriously. “And is that all one ought to be concerned about? All Russia is in prison.”
“I expected something of that sort. Alluring phrases have made you deaf and blind. It is my duty to try to save you before it is too late.”
He had come for friendly remonstrance, for an open-hearted explanation, but that mood had been shattered the moment he saw her approaching with two of her new friends. He persisted in using the didactic tone he had been in the habit of taking with her, and he could not help feeling how ridiculously out of place it had become. He chafed under a sense of his lost authority, and the impotent superiority of his own manner impelled him to bitterness.
“Is that what you have come for—to rescue me from empty phrases and bad company?”
“Yes, to rescue you from the intoxication of bombast and dangerous company, whether you are in a sarcastic mood or not.”
“And how are you going to do it, pray?” she asked with rather good-natured gaiety.
“Laugh away. Laugh away. Since you took up with those scamps——”
“Scamps! I can’t let you speak like that, Volodia. I don’t know what you mean by ‘taking’ up with them, but if by ‘scamps’ you mean people who are sacrificing themselves——”
“You misunderstand me——”