"Look out that no harm comes of it. He's hot-tempered," Ilya warned her one day; but she laughed.
"He? He's as gentle—I can twist him which way I want."
"You'll break him!"
"Good heavens!" she cried crossly, "what am I to do? Was I born for just one man? Every one wants to enjoy his life, and every one lives for himself, as he pleases, just as you do, and I do."
"N—No! it isn't so exactly," said Ilya gloomily and thoughtfully. "We all live, but not only for ourselves."
"For whom, then?"
"Take yourself, for instance. You live for the young clerks and all sorts of easy-going people."
"I'm easy-going too," said Vyera, and laughed contentedly.
Ilya left her, in a downcast mood. Only twice, and for a moment, had he seen Pavel during this time. Once when he met his friend at Vyera's house, he had sat there dark and troubled, silent, with teeth clenched and a red spot on each cheek. Ilya understood that Pavel was jealous of him, and that flattered his vanity. But he saw too, clearly, that Gratschev was tangled in a net, from which he would hardly free himself without severe injury. He pitied Pavel, and still more Vyera, and gave up visiting her. He was living a new honeymoon with Olympiada. But here too, a cold shadow glided in and took the peace from his heart. Sometimes, in the midst of a conversation, he would sink into a deep moodiness. Olympiada said to him once, in a loving whisper:
"Dear, don't think of it. There are so few men in the world whose hands are clean."