"But, dearest, why shouldn't he look like a girl? He is a girl dressed up!"
"What do you mean!" exclaimed Varvara.
"They've thought of it on purpose to catch Ardalyon Borisitch," said Grushina quickly with many gesticulations, very happy that she had such important news to tell. "You see this girl has a first cousin, a boy, an orphan, who went to school at Rouban. And this girl's mother took him away from Rouban and used his papers to send the girl here. And you will notice that they have put him in a house where there are no other boys. He's there alone, so that the whole matter, they thought, would be kept secret."
"And how did you find out?" asked Varvara incredulously.
"Varvara darling, news gets about quickly. It was suspicious at once: all the other boys are like boys, but this one is so quiet and walks about as if he had just been dipped in the water. To look at he's a fine-looking fellow, red-cheeked and chesty, but his companions notice that he's very modest—they tell him a word and he blushes at once. They tease him for being a girl. They do it for a lark and don't realise that it's the truth. And just think how shrewd they've been—why, even the landlady doesn't know anything."
"How did you find out?" repeated Varvara.
"But, Varvara darling, what is there that I don't know! I know everyone in the district. Why everyone knows that they have a boy at home the same age as this one. Why didn't they send them to school together? They say that he was ill last summer and that he was to spend a year recuperating and then go back to school. But that's all nonsense. The real schoolboy is at home. And then everyone knows that they had a girl and they say that she was married and went off to the Caucasus. But that's another lie—she didn't go away. She's living here disguised as a boy."
"But what's the object of it?" asked Varvara.
"What do you mean, 'What's the object?'" said Grushina animatedly. "To get hold of one of the instructors—there are plenty of them bachelors. Or perhaps someone else. Disguised as a boy, she could go to men's apartments, and there isn't much she couldn't do."
"You say she's a pretty girl?" said Varvara in apprehensive tones.