"Quite free."

"Ah! that's all I wanted to know."

"Why do you want to know?"

"Oh, I wanted to--I wanted you to tell me that."

"Our young lady is anxious to learn," Punin observed from the sofa.

When I went out into the passage Musa accompanied me, not, of course, from politeness, but with the same malicious intent. I asked her, as I took leave, "Can you really love him so much?"

"Whether I love him, or whether I don't, that's my affair," she answered. "What is to be, will be."

"Mind what you're about; don't play with fire . . . you'll get burnt."

"Better be burnt than frozen. You . . . with your good advice! And how can you tell he won't marry me? How do you know I so particularly want to get married? If I am ruined . . . what business is it of yours?"

She slammed the door after me.

I remember that on the way home I reflected with some pleasure that my friend Vladimir Tarhov might find things rather hot for him with his new type. . . . He ought to have to pay something for his happiness!

That he would be happy, I was--regretfully--unable to doubt.