“You go round with him at night? Don’t you know that he is a suspicious character, an enemy of the administration, a renegade from Church and Society. So he has been telling you about me?”
“Yes,” Raisky said.
“By his description I am a wild beast, a devourer of men.”
“No, you do not devour them, but you allow yourself, by what right God only knows, to insult them.”
“And did you believe that?”
“Until to-day, no.”
“And to-day?”
“To-day, I believe it,” agreed Raisky to the terror and agitation of the company. Most of the officials present escaped to the hall, and stood near the door listening.
“How so,” asked Niel Andreevich haughtily.
“Because you have just insulted a lady.”