"But why?"

The girl shrugged her shoulders, and all at once, as though she had received a sudden shove, got up from her chair.

"Why, Musa, Musotchka," Tarhov expostulated plaintively. "Stay a little!"

"No, no, I can't." She went quickly to the door, took hold of the handle. . . .

"Well, at least, take the book!"

"Another time."

Tarhov rushed towards the girl, but at that instant she darted out of the room. He almost knocked his nose against the door. "What a girl! She's a regular little viper!" he declared with some vexation, and then sank into thought.

I stayed at Tarhov's. I wanted to find out what was the meaning of it all. Tarhov was not disposed to be reserved. He told me that the girl was a milliner; that he had seen her for the first time three weeks before in a fashionable shop, where he had gone on a commission for his sister, who lived in the provinces, to buy a hat; that he had fallen in love with her at first sight, and that next day he had succeeded in speaking to her in the street; that she had herself, it seemed, taken rather a fancy to him.

"Only, please, don't you suppose," he added with warmth,--"don't you imagine any harm of her. So far, at any rate, there's been nothing of that sort between us."