the impulses of passion, by disenchantment, by meekness. Panshin retorted; she disagreed with him ... but, strange to say!--at the very time when words of condemnation, often harsh, were issuing from her lips, the sound of those words caressed and enervated, and her eyes said ... precisely what those lovely eyes said, it would be difficult to state; but their speech was not severe, not clear, yet sweet. Panshin endeavoured to understand their mysterious significance, endeavoured to talk with his own eyes, but he was conscious that he was not at all successful; he recognised the fact that Varvara Pavlovna, in her quality of a genuine foreign lioness, stood above him, and therefore he was not in full control of himself. Varvara Pavlovna had a habit, while talking, of lightly touching the sleeve of her interlocutor; these momentary touches greatly agitated Vladimir Nikolaitch. Varvara Pavlovna possessed the art of getting on easily with every one; two hours had not elapsed before it seemed to Panshin that he had known her always, and Liza, that same Liza, whom he loved, nevertheless, to whom he had offered his hand on the preceding day,--vanished as in a mist. Tea was served; the conversation became still more unconstrained. Marya Dmitrievna rang for her page, and ordered him to tell Liza to come down-stairs if her head felt better. Panshin, on hearing Liza's name, set to talking about self-sacrifice, about who was the more capable of sacrifice--man or woman? Marya Dmitrievna immediately became agitated, began to assert that woman is the more capable, declared that she would prove it in two words, got entangled, and wound up by a decidedly infelicitous comparison. Varvara Pavlovna picked up a music-book, half-concealed herself with it, and leaning over in the direction of Panshin, nibbling at a biscuit, with a calm smile on her lips and in her glance, she remarked, in an undertone: "_Elle n'a pas invente la poudre, la bonne dame._" Panshin was somewhat alarmed and amazed at Varvara Pavlovna's audacity; but he did not understand how much scorn for him, himself, was concealed in that unexpected sally, and, forgetting the affection and the devotion of Marya Dmitrievna, forgetting the dinners wherewith she had fed him, the money which she had lent him,--he, with the same little smile, the same tone, replied (unlucky wight!): "_Je crois bien_,"--and not even: "_Je crois bien_," but:--"_Je crois ben!_" Varvara Pavlovna cast a friendly glance at him, and rose. Liza had entered; in vain had Marfa Timofeevna sought to hold her back: she had made up her mind to endure the trial to the end. Varvara Pavlovna advanced to meet her, in company with Panshin, on whose face the former diplomatic expression had again made its appearance. "How is your health?"--he asked Liza. "I feel better now, thank you,"--she replied. "We have been having a little music here; it is a pity that you did not hear Varvara Pavlovna. She sings superbly, _un artiste consommee_."