Ilya looked at her, and said, drily:
"What's that to me? Don't trouble me with your police, or anything else. Tell me simply why you've brought me here, with all this precaution."
Olympiada looked at him searchingly, then said, with a mocking laugh: "Oh, you'll still play the innocent—but there's no time for that. Listen. When the police officer examines you and asks you when you got to know me, and whether you visited me often, say just the plain truth—exactly—do you hear?"
"I hear," said Ilya, and smiled.
"And if he asks you about the old man, say you never saw him, never; that you know nothing of him, that you never heard that any one was keeping me—d'you understand?"
She looked Ilya through and through with an air of command. He felt an evil thought push up in him, that yet gave him pleasure. He thought that Olympiada feared him, and he found in himself a desire to torture her. He knit his brows and looked in her face with a furtive smile, but said nothing. A spasm of fear twitched her features, and she stepped back a pace, pale, whispering softly: "What is the matter? Why do you look like that? Ilya, Ilya!"
"Tell me, why should I lie?" he asked, showing his teeth scornfully. "I have seen the old man at your house."
Then, resting his elbows on the marble-topped table, he went on slowly and quietly, with a sudden access of bitter anger:
"I did see him once, and I thought: 'This is the man who stands in my way and has spoilt my life;' and if I did not strangle him then and there——"
"Don't tell lies!" cried Olympiada, loudly, and struck the table. "It is a lie! He was not in your way."