“Why, it's Paul Alexandrovitch! and you told us he had gone to his godfather's, Maria Alexandrovna. We were told you had hidden yourself away from us, Paul Alexandrovitch!” cried Natalia.
“Hidden myself?” said Paul, with a crooked sort of a smile. “What a strange expression! Excuse me, Natalia Dimitrievna, but I never hide from anyone; I have no cause to do so, that I know of! Nor do I ever hide anyone else!” he added, looking significantly at Maria Alexandrovna.
Maria Alexandrovna trembled in her shoes.
“Surely this fool of a man is not up to anything disagreeable!” she thought. “No, no! that would be worse than anything!” She looked curiously and anxiously into his eyes.
“Is it true, Paul Alexandrovitch, that you have just been politely dismissed?—the Government service, I mean, of course!” remarked the daring Felisata Michaelovna, looking impertinently into his eyes.
“Dismissed! How dismissed? I'm simply changing my department, that's all! I am to be placed at Petersburg!” Mosgliakoff answered, drily.
“Oh! well, I congratulate you!” continued the bold young woman. “We were alarmed to hear that you were trying for a—a place down here at Mordasoff. The berths here are wretched, Paul Alexandrovitch—no good at all, I assure you!”
“I don't know—there's a place as teacher at the school, vacant, I believe,” remarked Natalia.
This was such a crude and palpable insinuation that even Mrs. Antipova was ashamed of her friend, and kicked her, under the table.
“You don't suppose Paul Alexandrovitch would accept the place vacated by a wretched little schoolmaster!” said Felisata Michaelovna.