“You have been deceiving me? Why so?”
“I will explain later. Important reasons have kept me away from you for a fortnight.”
“What are they?”
“I—I am afraid of scandal, of people’s tongues.”
“And not of the fact that possibly I might pass sleepless nights—that possibly I might be so anxious as to be unable to rest?”
“You cannot think what is passing within me,” he said, pointing to his head, and then to his heart. “I am all on edge, all on fire.”
With that he told her what Zakhar had said to him, and ended with a statement that, like herself, he could not sleep, and that in every glance he saw a question, or a sneer, or a veiled hint at the relations which might be existing between her and himself.
“Let us decide to tell my aunt this week,” she replied, “and at once this chatter will cease. Had I not known you so well, I should scarcely have been able to understand the fact that you can be afraid of servants’ gossip, yet not of making me anxious. Really I cannot understand you.”
“Listen,” presently she went on. “There is more in this than meets the eye. Tell me all that is in your mind. What does it mean?”
He looked at her—then kissed her hand and sighed.