"Well?" said Zinaida Fyodorovna, giving me a glass. "What do you say to me?"
"There is more light in the world than you see through your window," I answered. "And there are other people besides me, Zinaida Fyodorovna."
"Then tell me who they are," she said eagerly. "That's all I ask of you."
"And I want to say, too," I went on, "one can serve an idea in more than one calling. If one has made a mistake and lost faith in one, one may find another. The world of ideas is large and cannot be exhausted."
"The world of ideas!" she said, and she looked into my face sarcastically. "Then we had better leave off talking. What's the use?..."
She flushed.
"The world of ideas!" she repeated. She threw her dinner-napkin aside, and an expression of indignation and contempt came into her face. "All your fine ideas, I see, lead up to one inevitable, essential step: I ought to become your mistress. That's what's wanted. To be taken up with ideas without being the mistress of an honourable, progressive man, is as good as not understanding the ideas. One has to begin with that ... that is, with being your mistress, and the rest will come of itself."
"You are irritated, Zinaida Fyodorovna," I said.
"No, I am sincere!" she cried, breathing hard. "I am sincere!"
"You are sincere, perhaps, but you are in error, and it hurts me to hear you."