"Terrible people," repeated Valeria quietly, in a clear, fragile voice and shivered from head to foot as if she had come in contact with something unclean.
"You ask him yourself," said Darya. "Just look at him; he's still a mere child. Perhaps you have got used to his naïveté, but one can see better from the outside that he's quite an unspoiled boy."
The sisters lied with such assurance and tranquillity that it was impossible not to believe them. Why not? Lies have often more verisimilitude than the truth. Nearly always. As for truth of course it has no verisimilitude.
"Of course it is true that he was often here," said Darya, "but we shan't let him cross our threshold again, if you object."
"And I shall go and see Khripatch to-day," said Liudmilla. "How did he get hold of that notion? Surely he doesn't believe such a stupid tale?"
"No, I don't think he believes it himself," admitted Ekaterina Ivanovna. "But he says that various unpleasant rumours are going about."
"There! You see!" exclaimed Liudmilla happily. "Of course he doesn't believe it himself. What's the reason of all this fuss then?"
Liudmilla's cheerful voice deceived Ekaterina Ivanovna. She thought:
"I wonder what exactly has happened? The Head-Master does say that he doesn't believe it."
The sisters for a long time supported each other in persuading Ekaterina Ivanovna of the complete innocence of their relations with Sasha. To set her mind more completely at rest they were on the point of telling her in detail precisely what they did with Sasha; but they stopped short because they were all such innocent, simple things that it was difficult to remember them. And Ekaterina Ivanovna at last came to believe that her Sasha and the charming Routilovs were the innocent victims of stupid slander.