“And do you want much?”
“I should be satisfied with a few thousand francs at first. Your husband knows my estate. You can consult him—I would take a very moderate price.”
Maria Nikolaevna tossed her head from left to right. “In the first place,” she began in deliberate tones, drumming with the tips of her fingers on the cuff of Sanin’s coat, “I am not in the habit of consulting my husband, except about matters of dress—he’s my right hand in that; and in the second place, why do you say that you will fix a low price? I don’t want to take advantage of your being very much in love at the moment, and ready to make any sacrifices…. I won’t accept sacrifices of any kind from you. What? Instead of encouraging you … come, how is one to express it properly?—in your noble sentiments, eh? am I to fleece you? that’s not my way. I can be hard on people, on occasion—only not in that way.”
Sanin was utterly unable to make out whether she was laughing at him or speaking seriously, and only said to himself: “Oh, I can see one has to mind what one’s about with you!”
A man-servant came in with a Russian samovar, tea-things, cream, biscuits, etc., on a big tray; he set all these good things on the table between Sanin and Madame Polozov, and retired.
She poured him out a cup of tea. “You don’t object?” she queried, as she put sugar in his cup with her fingers … though sugar-tongs were lying close by.
“Oh, please!… From such a lovely hand …”
He did not finish his phrase, and almost choked over a sip of tea, while she watched him attentively and brightly.
“I spoke of a moderate price for my land,” he went on, “because as you are abroad just now, I can hardly suppose you have a great deal of cash available, and in fact, I feel myself that the sale … the purchase of my land, under such conditions is something exceptional, and I ought to take that into consideration.”
Sanin got confused, and lost the thread of what he was saying, while Maria Nikolaevna softly leaned back in her easy-chair, folded her arms, and watched him with the same attentive bright look. He was silent at last.