put an end to their unnatural position. But, besides that, her emotion physically affected him in the same way. He looked at her with a look of submissive tenderness, kissed her hand, got up, and, in silence, paced up and down the terrace.
"Yes," he said, going up to her resolutely. "Neither you nor I have looked on our relations as a passing amusement, and now our fate is sealed. It is absolutely necessary to put an end"—he looked round as he spoke—"to the deception in which we are living."
"Put an end? How put an end, Alexey?" she said softly.
She was calmer now, and her face lighted up with a tender smile.
"Leave your husband and make our life one."
"It is one as it is," she answered, scarcely audibly.
"Yes, but altogether; altogether."
"But how, Alexey, tell me how?" she said in melancholy mockery at the hopelessness of her own position. "Is there any way out of such a position? Am I not the wife of my husband?"
"There is a way out of every position. We must take our line," he said. "Anything’s better than the position in which you’re living. Of course, I see how you torture yourself over everything—the world and your son and your husband."
"Oh, not over my husband," she said, with a quiet smile. "I don’t know him, I don’t think of him. He doesn’t exist."
"You’re not speaking sincerely. I know you. You worry about him too."
"Oh, he doesn’t even know," she said, and suddenly a hot flush came over her face; her cheeks, her brow, her neck crimsoned, and tears of shame came into her eyes. "But we won’t talk of him."
Chapter 23
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