‘_Je vous ai beaucoup admirée ce soir, madame_,’ he observed, smoking a cigarette, and leaning against the mantelpiece, ‘_vous vous êtes parfaitement moquée de nous tous_.’ ‘_Pas plus cette fois-ci que les autres_,’ she answered indifferently. ‘How do you mean me to understand you?’ asked Ratmirov. ‘As you like.’ ‘Hm. _C’est clair._’ Ratmirov warily, like a cat, knocked off the ash of the cigarette with the tip of the long nail of his little finger. ‘Oh, by the way! This new friend of yours--what the dickens is his name?--Mr. Litvinov--doubtless enjoys the reputation of a very clever man.’ At the name of Litvinov, Irina turned quickly round. ‘What do you mean to say?’ The general smiled. ‘He keeps very quiet ... one can see he’s afraid of compromising himself.’ Irina too smiled; it was a very different smile from her husband’s. ‘Better keep quiet than talk ... as some people talk.’ ‘_Attrapé!_’ answered Ratmirov with feigned submissiveness. ‘Joking apart, he has a very interesting face. Such a ... concentrated expression ... and his whole bearing.... Yes....’ The general straightened his cravat, and bending his head stared at his own moustache. ‘He’s a republican, I imagine, of the same sort as your other friend, Mr. Potugin; that’s another of your clever fellows who are dumb.’ Irina’s brows were slowly raised above her wide open clear eyes, while her lips were tightly pressed together and faintly curved. ‘What’s your object in saying that, Valerian Vladimiritch,’ she remarked, as though sympathetically. ‘You are wasting your arrows on the empty air.... We are not in Russia, and there is no one to hear you.’ Ratmirov was stung. ‘That’s not merely my opinion, Irina Pavlovna,’ he began in a voice suddenly guttural; ‘other people too notice that that gentleman has the air of a conspirator.’ ‘Really? who are these other people?’ ‘Well, Boris for instance----’ ‘What? was it necessary for him too to express his opinion?’ Irina shrugged her shoulders as though shrinking from the cold, and slowly passed the tips of her fingers over them. ‘Him ... yes, him. Allow me to remark, Irina Pavlovna, that you seem angry; and you know if one is angry----’ ‘Am I angry? Oh, what for?’ ‘I don’t know; possibly you have been disagreeably affected by the observation I permitted myself to make in reference to----’ Ratmirov stammered. ‘In reference to?’ Irina repeated interrogatively. ‘Ah, if you please, no irony, and make haste. I’m tired and sleepy.’ She took a candle from the table. ‘In reference to----?’ ‘Well, in reference to this same Mr. Litvinov; since there’s no doubt now that you take a great interest in him.’ Irina lifted the hand in which she was holding the candlestick, till the flame was brought on a level with her husband’s face, and attentively, almost with curiosity, looking him straight in the face, she suddenly burst into laughter. ‘What is it?’ asked Ratmirov scowling. Irina went on laughing.