“Always paradoxes!” she exclaimed. “Come now, be honest, have you yourself never said to a woman that you loved her?”
“Never have I said so, never have I bowed a knee,” he replied laughing, “and never will I!”
“Yes, he need not tell me that he loves me!” I thought, now vividly recalling this conversation. “He does love me, and I know it. And all his efforts to seem indifferent cannot take away this conviction!”
During the whole evening he said very little to me, but in every word, in every look and motion, I felt love, and no longer had any doubts. The only thing that vexed and troubled me was that he should still judge it necessary to conceal this feeling, and to feign coldness, when already all was so clear, and we might have been so easily and so frankly happy almost beyond the verge of possibility. Then, too, I was tormenting myself as though I had committed a crime, for having jumped down into the cherry orchard to join him, and it seemed as if he must have ceased to esteem me, and must feel resentment against me.
After tea, I went to the piano, and he followed.
“Play something, Katia, I have not heard you for a long time,” he said, joining me in the drawing-room. “I wished ... Sergius Mikaïlovitch!” And suddenly I looked right into his eyes. “You are not angry with me?”
“Why should I be?”
“Because I did not obey you this afternoon,” said I, blushing.
He understood me, shook his head, and smiled. And this smile said that perhaps he would willingly have scolded me a little, but had no longer the strength to do so.
“That is done with, then, isn’t it? And we are good friends again?” I asked, seating myself at the piano.