“From you? I don’t understand.”
“When he gossipped about me, no one took any heed, for I am already counted with my fathers. But with Vera it is different, and they have dragged your name into the affair.”
“Mine? with Vera Vassilievna’s? Please tell me what the talk is.”
When Tatiana Markovna had told the story he asked what she wished him to do.
“You must clear yourself,” she said. “You have been beyond reproach all your life, and must be again. As soon as Marfinka’s wedding is over I shall settle on my estate at Novosselovo for good. You should make haste to inform Tychkov that you were not in the town on the day before Marfinka’s fête-day, and consequently could not have been at the precipice.”
“It ought to be done differently.”
“Do just as you like, Ivan Ivanovich. But what else can you say?”
“I would rather not meet Tychkov. He may have heard through others that I certainly was in the town; I was spending a couple of days with a friend. I shall spread it about that I did visit the precipice on that evening with Vera Vassilievna, although that is not the case. I might add that I had offered her my hand and had met with a refusal, by which you, Tatiana Markovna, who gave me your approval, were aggrieved; that Vera Vassilievna felt bitterly the breach of our friendship. One might even speak of a distant hope ... of a promise....”
“People will not be kept quiet by that, for a promise cannot always remain a promise.”
“It will be forgotten, Tatiana Markovna, especially if you, as you say, leave the neighbourhood. If it is not forgotten, and you and Vera Vassilievna are further disturbed, it is still possible,” he added in a low tone, “to accept my proposal.”