‘And was she of a retiring disposition?’ Aratov inquired, after a short silence. ‘Retiring! to be sure she was. As a woman should be. Bold ones have sprung up nowadays.’ ‘And were there no bold ones in your time?’ ‘There were in our time too ... to be sure there were! But who were they? A pack of strumpets, shameless hussies. Draggle-tails--for ever gadding about after no good.... What do they care? It’s little they take to heart. If some poor fool comes in their way, they pounce on him. But sensible folk looked down on them. Did you ever see, pray, the like of such in our house?’ Aratov made no reply, and went back to his study. Platonida Ivanovna looked after him, shook her head, put on her spectacles again, and again took up her comforter ... but more than once sank into thought, and let her knitting-needles fall on her knees. Aratov up till very night kept telling himself, no! no! but with the same irritation, the same exasperation, he fell again into musing on the note, on the ‘gipsy girl,’ on the appointed meeting, to which he would certainly not go! And at night she gave him no rest. He was continually haunted by her eyes--at one time half-closed, at another wide open--and their persistent gaze fixed straight upon him, and those motionless features with their dominating expression.... The next morning he again, for some reason, kept expecting Kupfer; he was on the point of writing a note to him ... but did nothing, however,... and spent most of the time walking up and down his room. He never for one instant admitted to himself even the idea of going to this idiotic rendezvous ... and at half-past three, after a hastily swallowed dinner, suddenly throwing on his cloak and thrusting his cap on his head, he dashed out into the street, unseen by his aunt, and turned towards the Tversky boulevard. VII