He read admiration in her eyes, and made an effort to smile.
“Then—alone?”
He held up his closed hand with the index raised. “Like this finger,” he said.
She was trembling slightly. But it occurred to Razumov that they might have been observed from the house, and he became anxious to be gone. She blinked, raising up to him her puckered face, and seemed to beg mutely to be told something more, to be given a word of encouragement for her starving, grotesque, and pathetic devotion.
“Can we be seen from the house?” asked Razumov confidentially.
She answered, without showing the slightest surprise at the question—
“No, we can’t, on account of this end of the stables.” And she added, with an acuteness which surprised Razumov, “But anybody looking out of an upstairs window would know that you have not passed through the gates yet.”
“Who’s likely to spy out of the window?” queried Razumov. “Peter Ivanovitch?”
She nodded.
“Why should he trouble his head?”