‘Why do you avoid me, Grigory Mihalitch?’ she said, in the unsteady voice of one who is boiling over within.
Litvinov was taken aback. ‘I avoid you, Irina Pavlovna?’
‘Yes, you ... you——’
Irina seemed excited, almost angry.
‘You are mistaken, I assure you.’
‘No, I am not mistaken. Do you suppose this morning—when we met, I mean—do you suppose I didn’t see that you knew me? Do you mean to say you did not know me? Tell me.’
‘I really ... Irina Pavlovna——’
‘Grigory Mihalitch, you’re a straightforward man, you have always told the truth; tell me, tell me, you knew me, didn’t you? you turned away on purpose?’
Litvinov glanced at Irina. Her eyes shone with a strange light, while her cheeks and lips were of a deathly pallor under the thick net of her veil. In the expression of her face, in the very sound of her abruptly jerked-out whisper, there was something so irresistibly mournful, beseeching ... Litvinov could not pretend any longer.
‘Yes ... I knew you,’ he uttered not without effort.