‘Ah, yes, again,’ Irina interposed hurriedly. ‘O Grigory, don’t torture me, don’t torture yourself!... Let us be free people! What does it matter if I do cry! And indeed do I know myself why my tears are flowing? You know, you have heard my decision, you believe it will not be changed. That I agree to ... What was it you said?... to all or nothing ... what more would you have? Let us be free! Why these mutual chains? We are alone together now, you love me. I love you; is it possible we have nothing to do but wringing our thoughts out of each other? Look at me, I don’t want to talk about myself, I have never by one word hinted that for me perhaps it was not so easy to set at nought my duty as a wife ... and, of course, I don’t deceive myself, I know I am a criminal, and that _he_ has a right to kill me. Well, what of it? Let us be free, I say. To-day is ours--a life-time’s ours.’ She got up from the arm-chair and looked at Litvinov with her head thrown back, faintly smiling and moving her eyebrows, while with one arm bare to the elbow she pushed back from her face a long tress on which a few tears glistened. A rich scarf slipped from the table and fell on the floor at Irina’s feet. She trampled contemptuously on it. ‘Or don’t you like me, to-day? Have I grown ugly since yesterday? Tell me, have you often seen a prettier hand? And this hair? Tell me, do you love me?’ She clasped him in both arms, held his head close to her bosom, her comb fell out with a ringing sound, and her falling hair wrapped him in a soft flood of fragrance. XXIV