"Why am I keeping you here in the heat?" she said after a brief pause, laughing. "Let us go indoors."
"I am not disturbing you?"
They went into the hall. Yulia Sergeyevna ran upstairs, her white dress with blue flowers on it rustling as she went.
"I can't be disturbed," she answered, stopping on the landing. "I never do anything. Every day is a holiday for me, from morning till night."
"What you say is inconceivable to me," he said, going up to her. "I grew up in a world in which every one without exception, men and women alike, worked hard every day."
"But if one has nothing to do?" she asked.
"One has to arrange one's life under such conditions, that work is inevitable. There can be no clean and happy life without work."
Again he pressed the parasol to his bosom, and to his own surprise spoke softly, in a voice unlike his own:
"If you would consent to be my wife I would give everything--I would give everything. There's no price I would not pay, no sacrifice I would not make."
She started and looked at him with wonder and alarm.