Then a horrible anger overcame him.
"I was stupid, I was mistaken in you. You think no more nobly or better than the others!" he burst out.
"I do not understand you. What do you mean?" murmured she.
What else had she to ask? Why did she not go, but stood before him, as if paralyzed, with her pale, seductive loveliness, surrounded by moonlight?
"I mean that if you observe our relations from this conventional standpoint, your behavior to me was a heartless, arrogant abomination."
"But, Boris Nikolaivitch, that is all foolishness. You do not know what you are saying," she stammered, quite beside herself.
"So! I do not know what I am saying?" He had now stepped close up to her. "And if I, mistaking your coquetries--yes, that is the word; blush now and be a little ashamed--if I, mistaking your coquetries, have permitted myself to petition for your hand? Oh, how you start! Naturally, you had never thought of such a thing!"
His voice was hoarse and rasping, his face very calm and as if petrified by anger and such a mental torment as he had never before experienced. "But go! Why do you stay and torture me? I will no longer look at you. I abominate you, and still I love you so passionately, so madly!"
Yes, why did she still not go? He could endure it no longer--he clasped her to his breast and kissed her with his hot, burning lips. Then she pushed him from her and fled.
He looked after her. Now all was over. For one moment he remained standing on the same spot, then, with deeply bowed head, dragging his feet along slowly, he passed through the vestibule and left, without thinking of his hat, which he had left in the drawing-room.