Ten minutes later she managed to come near me again. She seemed to enjoy saying bold and dangerous things to me, and saying them in the presence of her protector, under his vigilant eye, only exercising barely enough caution not to arouse his suspicions. It is well known that walking on the brink, on the very edge, of the precipice is woman’s favourite pastime. ‘Yes, I was there,’ whispered Musa, without any change of countenance, except that her nostrils were faintly quivering and her lips twitching. ‘Yes, and if Paramon Semyonitch asks me what I am whispering about with you, I’d tell him this minute. What do I care?’ ‘Be more careful,’ I besought her. ‘I really believe they are noticing.’ ‘I tell you, I’m quite ready to tell them everything. And who’s noticing? One’s stretching his neck off the pillow, like a sick duck, and hears nothing; and the other’s deep in philosophy. Don’t you be afraid!’ Musa’s voice rose a little, and her cheeks gradually flushed a sort of malignant, dusky red; and this suited her marvellously, and never had she been so pretty. As she cleared the table, and set the cups and saucers in their places, she moved swiftly about the room; there was something challenging about her light, free and easy movement. ‘You may criticise me as you like,’ she seemed to say; ‘but I’m going my own way, and I’m not afraid of you.’ I cannot disguise the fact that I found Musa bewitching just that evening. ‘Yes,’ I mused; ‘she’s a little spitfire--she’s a new type.... She’s--exquisite. Those hands know how to deal a blow, I dare say.... What of it! No matter!’ ‘Paramon Semyonitch,’ she cried suddenly, ‘isn’t a republic an empire in which every one does as he chooses?’ ‘A republic is not an empire,’ answered Baburin, raising his head, and contracting his brows; ‘it is a ... form of society in which everything rests on law and justice.’ ‘Then,’ Musa pursued, ‘in a republic no one can oppress any one else?’ ‘No.’ ‘And every one is free to dispose of himself?’ ‘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.