Véretyeff raised his head and laughed.
“Ah! I understand!”—he said.—“Again! again the thought is beginning to agitate you: ‘Why don’t I make something of myself?’ Do you know what, Másha, you are a wonderful being; by Heaven, you are! You worry so much about other people and so little about yourself. There is not a bit of egoism in you; really, really there isn’t. There’s no other girl in the world like you. It’s a pity about one thing: I decidedly am not worthy of your affection; I say that without jesting.”
“So much the worse for you. You feel and do nothing.”—Again Véretyeff laughed.
“Másha, take your hand from behind your back, and give it to me,”—he said, with insinuating affection in his voice.
Márya Pávlovna merely shrugged her shoulders.
“Give me your beautiful, honest hand; I want to kiss it respectfully and tenderly. Thus does a giddy-pated scholar kiss the hand of his condescending tutor.”
And Véretyeff reached out toward Márya Pávlovna.
“Enough of that!”—said she. “You are always laughing and jesting, and you will jest away your life like that.”
“H’m! jest away my life! A new expression! But I hope, Márya Pávlovna, that you used the verb ‘to jest’ in the active sense?”
Márya Pávlovna contracted her brows.