"Well, thank God they've gone. I didn't know what to talk to them about. When you don't know people you can't tell how to get at them." Suddenly she remembered that when the Khripatches left they had not invited her to their house. This distressed her at first, but afterwards she thought: "They'll send a card with a note when to come. Gentry like them have a time for everything. I suppose I ought to have a go at French. I can't even say 'Pa' and 'Ma' in French." When they got home the Head-Master's wife said to her husband: "She's simply pitiful, and hopelessly vulgar; it's utterly impossible to be on equal terms with her. There's nothing in her to correspond with her position." Khripatch replied: "She fully corresponds with her husband. I'm impatiently waiting for them to take him away from us." * * * * * After the wedding Varvara began to drink now and then--most frequently with Grushina. Once when she was a little tipsy Prepolovenskaya was at her house and Varvara blabbed about the letter. She didn't tell everything but she hinted sufficiently clearly. This was enough for the cunning Sofya--it was a sudden revelation to her. "But why didn't I guess it at once," she mentally reproached herself. She told Vershina in confidence about the forged letters--and from her it spread all over the town. Prepolovenskaya could not help laughing at Peredonov's credulousness whenever she met him. She said to him: "You're very simple, Ardalyon Borisitch." "I'm not simple at all," he replied, "I'm a graduate of a University." "You may be a graduate, but anyone who wants to can take you in." "I can take in everyone myself," argued Peredonov. Prepolovenskaya smiled slyly and left him. Peredonov was dully perplexed. "What does she mean? It's out of spite," he thought. "Everyone's my enemy." And he made a Koukish after her. "You'll get nothing out of me," he thought, consoling himself, but he was tormented by dread. Her hints did not seem very satisfactory to Prepolovenskaya. But she did not want to tell him everything in plain words. Why should she quarrel with Varvara? From time to time she sent Peredonov anonymous letters in which the hints were clearer. But Peredonov misunderstood them. Sofya once wrote him: "You had better see whether that Princess, who wrote you the letter, doesn't live here." Peredonov thought that perhaps the Princess had really come to the town to watch his movements. "It's obvious," he thought, "that she's in love with me and wants to get me away from Varvara." And these letters both frightened and angered him. He kept asking Varvara: "Where is the Princess? I hear that she has come to the town."