‘Attrapé!’ answered Ratmirov with feigned submissiveness. ‘Joking apart, he has a very interesting face. Such a ... concentrated expression ... and his whole bearing.... Yes....’ The general straightened his cravat, and bending his head stared at his own moustache. ‘He’s a republican, I imagine, of the same sort as your other friend, Mr. Potugin; that’s another of your clever fellows who are dumb.’
Irina’s brows were slowly raised above her wide open clear eyes, while her lips were tightly pressed together and faintly curved.
‘What’s your object in saying that, Valerian Vladimiritch,’ she remarked, as though sympathetically. ‘You are wasting your arrows on the empty air.... We are not in Russia, and there is no one to hear you.’
Ratmirov was stung.
‘That’s not merely my opinion, Irina Pavlovna,’ he began in a voice suddenly guttural; ‘other people too notice that that gentleman has the air of a conspirator.’
‘Really? who are these other people?’
‘Well, Boris for instance——’
‘What? was it necessary for him too to express his opinion?’
Irina shrugged her shoulders as though shrinking from the cold, and slowly passed the tips of her fingers over them.
‘Him ... yes, him. Allow me to remark, Irina Pavlovna, that you seem angry; and you know if one is angry——’