“I knew it was all a joke!” cried Adelaida. “I felt it ever since—since the hedgehog.”
“No, no! I cannot allow this,—this is a little too much,” cried Lizabetha Prokofievna, exploding with rage, and she rose from her seat and followed Aglaya out of the room as quickly as she could.
The two sisters hurriedly went after her.
The prince and the general were the only two persons left in the room.
“It’s—it’s really—now could you have imagined anything like it, Lef Nicolaievitch?” cried the general. He was evidently so much agitated that he hardly knew what he wished to say. “Seriously now, seriously I mean—”
“I only see that Aglaya Ivanovna is laughing at me,” said the poor prince, sadly.
“Wait a bit, my boy, I’ll just go—you stay here, you know. But do just explain, if you can, Lef Nicolaievitch, how in the world has all this come about? And what does it all mean? You must understand, my dear fellow; I am a father, you see, and I ought to be allowed to understand the matter—do explain, I beg you!”
“I love Aglaya Ivanovna—she knows it,—and I think she must have long known it.”
The general shrugged his shoulders.
“Strange—it’s strange,” he said, “and you love her very much?”