but rather as if she had been fed on unwholesome scraps and leavings of plates.
Razumov smiled amiably and moved out of her way. She turned her head to keep her scared eyes on him.
"I know what you have been told in there," she affirmed, without preliminaries. Her tone, in contrast with her manner, had an unexpectedly assured character which put Razumov at his ease.
"Do you? You must have heard all sorts of talk on many occasions in there."
She varied her phrase, with the same incongruous effect of positiveness.
"I know to a certainty what you have been told to do."
"Really?" Razumov shrugged his shoulders a little. He was about to pass on with a bow, when a sudden thought struck him. "Yes. To be sure! In your confidential position you are aware of many things," he murmured, looking at the cat.
That animal got a momentary convulsive hug from the lady companion.
"Everything was disclosed to me a long time ago," she said.
"Everything," Razumov repeated absently.
"Peter Ivanovitch is an awful despot," she jerked out.
Razumov went on studying the stripes on the grey fur of the cat.
"An iron will is an integral part of such a temperament. How else could he be a leader? And I think that you are mistaken in—"
"There!" she cried. "You tell me that I am mistaken. But I tell you all the same that he cares for no one." She jerked her head up. "Don't you bring that girl here. That's what you have been told to do—to bring that girl here. Listen to me; you had better tie a stone round her neck and throw her into the lake."
Razumov had a sensation of chill and gloom, as if a heavy cloud had passed over the sun.
"The girl?" he said. "What have I to do with her?"
"But you have been told to bring Nathalie Haldin here. Am I not right? Of course I am right. I was not in the room, but I know. I know Peter Ivanovitch sufficiently well. He is a great man. Great men are horrible. Well, that's it. Have nothing to do with her. That's the best you can do, unless you want her to become like me—disillusioned! Disillusioned!"
"Like you," repeated Razumov, glaring at her face, as devoid of all comeliness of feature and complexion as the most miserable beggar is of money. He smiled, still feeling chilly: a peculiar sensation which annoyed him. "Disillusioned as to Peter Ivanovitch! Is that all you have lost?"
She declared, looking frightened, but with immense conviction, "Peter Ivanovitch stands for everything." Then she added, in another tone, "Keep the girl away from this house."
"And are you absolutely inciting me to disobey Peter Ivanovitch just because—because you are disillusioned?"
She began to blink.
"Directly I saw you for the first time I was comforted. You took your hat off to me. You looked as if one could trust you. Oh!"
She shrank before Razumov's savage snarl of, "I have heard something like this before."
She was so confounded that she could do nothing but blink for a long time.
"It was your humane manner," she explained plaintively. "I have been starving for, I won't say kindness, but just for a little civility, for I don't know how long. And now you are angry...."
"But no, on the contrary," he protested. "I am very glad you trust me. It's possible that later on I may..."
"Yes, if you were to get ill," she interrupted eagerly, "or meet some bitter trouble, you would find I am not a useless fool. You have only to let me know. I will come to you. I will indeed. And I will stick to you. Misery and I are old acquaintances—but this life here is worse than starving."
She paused anxiously, then in a voice for the first time sounding really timid, she added—
"Or if you were engaged in some dangerous work. Sometimes a humble companion—I would not want to know anything. I would follow you with joy. I could carry out orders. I have the courage."
Razumov looked attentively at the scared round eyes, at the withered, sallow, round cheeks. They were quivering about the corners of the mouth.
"She wants to escape from here," he thought.
"Suppose I were to tell you that I am engaged in dangerous work?" he uttered slowly.
She pressed the cat to her threadbare bosom with a breathless exclamation. "Ah!" Then not much above a whisper: "Under Peter Ivanovitch?"
"No, not under Peter Ivanovitch."
He read admiration in her eyes, and made an effort to smile.
"Then—alone?"
He held up his closed hand with the index raised. "Like this finger," he said.
She was trembling slightly. But it occurred to Razumov that they might have been observed from the house, and he became anxious to be gone. She blinked, raising up to him her puckered face, and seemed to beg mutely to be told something more, to be given a word of encouragement for her starving, grotesque, and pathetic devotion.
"Can we be seen from the house?" asked Razumov confidentially.
She answered, without showing the slightest surprise at the question—
"No, we can't, on account of this end of the stables." And she added, with an acuteness which surprised Razumov, "But anybody looking out of an upstairs window would know that you have not passed through the gates yet."
"Who's likely to spy out of the window?" queried Razumov. "Peter Ivanovitch?"
She nodded.
"Why should he trouble his head?"
"He expects somebody this afternoon."
"You know the person?"
"There's more than one."
She had lowered her eyelids. Razumov looked at her curiously.
"Of course. You hear everything they say."
She murmured without any animosity—
"So do the tables and chairs."
He understood that the bitterness accumulated in the heart of that helpless creature had got into her veins, and, like some subtle poison, had decomposed her fidelity to that hateful pair. It was a great piece of luck for him, he reflected; because women are seldom venal after the manner of men, who can be bought for material considerations. She would be a good ally, though it was not likely that she was allowed to hear as much as the tables and chairs of the Chateau Borel. That could not be expected. But still.... And, at any rate, she could be made to talk.
When she looked up her eyes met the fixed stare of Razumov, who began to speak at once.
"Well, well, dear...but upon my word, I haven't the pleasure of knowing your name yet.
