“God forbid! on no account.”
“How is it to be done then? She wants to breathe the same air as you.”
“I should stifle in that atmosphere.”
“But if I ask you to do it?” whispered Vera.
“You, what difference can it make to you?” he asked trembling.
“I should like to say something pleasant to her,” she returned, but did not add that she seized this means of detaching him from herself. Paulina Karpovna would not lightly let him out of her hands.
“Should you accept it as a sign of friendship if I fulfilled your wish? Well, then,” as she nodded, “I make two conditions, one that you should be present at the sittings. Otherwise I should be clearing out at the first sitting. Do you agree?” Then, as she nodded unwillingly, “the second is that you show me the other letter.”
“Which letter?”
“The one you hid so quickly in your pocket.”
“There isn’t another.”