"You would simply have been lost. A woman should never let it be seen that a man's seductive arts terrify her; a demonstrative repulse makes her at once his prey. I was watching you—you behaved admirably. Your expression was that of a woman who does not understand what is being said to her, who takes it all as a joke; and by so doing you led him on to speak still more explicitly."
"That is just what he did. Only think, impertinent fellow! He actually had the audacity to tell me that for love of me he had bought an estate but half a day's distance from Pleskow, where he means to be spending the winter and to be visiting us constantly. I was inclined to say, 'Oh, please, do not come!'"
"You did well not to say it; rather you should have replied, 'Alexander Sergievitch will always be glad to see you.'"
"That is what I did say. But then he sighed so deeply: 'Oh, if you will only tell me one day Alexander Sergievitch is going from home to-morrow!' I should so have liked to give him a box on the ears for saying it!"
"But, instead of doing that, with naïve, unconscious expression you asked, 'What good would that be? You surely would not be coming to see me when my husband was not at home? All the world would know of it.' To which he made reply, 'You are right. But you could come to my castle.'"
"How do you know that?"
"From what you have told me and from what I saw. It was then that you felt inclined to cry."
"He said still more. 'You would have an excellent excuse to leave home while Alexander Sergievitch is away. Your mother, the Queen of Circassia, is in St. Ann's Convent in Novgorod. You would only have to say, "I am going to my mother, who has not seen me since I was a child, to tell her of my marriage, and ask her blessing upon it."' So even my poor mother he dragged into this infamy!"
"And upon that, leaving him, you took refuge with your godmother?"
"Did you notice that, too?"