“What shall I play to you?” she asked, opening the piano.
“What you like,” answered Lavretsky as he sat down so that he could look at her.
Lisa began to play, and for a long while she did not lift her eyes from her fingers. She glanced at last at Lavretsky, and stopped short; his face seemed strange and beautiful to her.
“What is the matter with you?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he replied; “I’m very happy; I’m glad of you, I’m glad to see you—go on.”
“It seems to me,” said Lisa a few moments later, “that if he had really loved me, he would not have written that letter; he must have felt that I could not give him an answer now.”
“That is of no consequence,” observed Lavretsky, “what is important is that you don’t love him.”
“Stop, how can we talk like this? I keep thinking of you dead wife, and you frighten me.”
“Don’t you think, Voldemar, that Liseta plays charmingly?” Marya Dmitrievna was saying at that moment to Panshin.
“Yes,” answered Panshin, “very charmingly.”