"Yes, that is true. Will you do me a kindness, Vera? You say that it is better that we should understand one another. It might save me much pain if you were to tell me now, before it is quite too late, whether you have left Paris as heart free as you entered it?"
Vera flushed crimson.
"By what right am I thus catechised?" she asked angrily. "Is it by virtue of the contract you so dishonestly retained? or do you consider that I am bound to give you my confidence because you have been so good as to lay bare your heart for my entertainment? Neither is a sufficient reason, sir."
"You are very hard on me, Vera," Maximof sighed. "What you have implied might have been conveyed to me less harshly. Well, thank you for letting me know what I wished to know." He paused. "With regard to our intercourse here in Moscow, I shall be very busy and—well, I may as well speak to you frankly while I am about it, I fancy it would be too dangerous for me to see much of you. Good-bye—oh, as to this thing——"
Sasha produced a pocket-book and took from it an oldish paper. "At any rate you shall be worried no longer by the whim of our parents!" He opened the door of the stove and threw the betrothal contract within; then he lit a match and applied it to an edge of the document which was soon in flames.
"So ends a foolish comedy that might have developed into a pretty romance!" said Maximof, laughing bitterly. "Farewell, Vera Danilovna. I wish to God you had not lived these three years in Paris!" At the door he turned and spoke again.
"Of course I don't blame you, but it's hard on me that you should have grown so—so maddeningly pretty." Maximof repeated his loud laugh and departed.
Vera sighed. "I ought to have known you before, my friend," she thought; "before—before Paul! But after all, the gulf between Paul and me is wide enough!"