"So these are the corrupters!" she thought, with vexation at the school pedagogues. But then she thought that perhaps they were assuming this modesty. She decided not to yield to their fascination. "You must forgive me, young ladies, but I have something serious to discuss with you," she said, trying to make her voice dry and business-like. The sisters made her sit down and kept up a gay chatter. "Which of you----" Ekaterina Ivanovna began irresolutely. Liudmilla, as if she were a graceful hostess trying to get a visitor out of a difficulty, said cheerfully: "It was I who spent most of the time with your nephew. We have similar views and tastes in many things." "Your nephew is a very charming boy," said Darya, as if she were confident that her praise would please the visitor. "Really most charming, and so entertaining," said Liudmilla. Ekaterina Ivanovna felt more and more awkward. She suddenly realised that she had no reasonable cause for complaint and this made her angry--Liudmilla's last words gave her an opportunity to express her vexation--she said angrily: "He may be an entertainment to you but to him----" But Darya interrupted her and said in a sympathetic voice: "Oh, I can see that those silly Peredonovian tales have reached you. Of course, you know that he's quite mad? The Head-Master does not even allow him to go to the _gymnasia_ now. They're only waiting for an alienist to examine him and then he will be dismissed from the school." "But, allow me," Ekaterina Ivanovna interrupted her with increasing irritation. "I am not interested in this schoolmaster but in my nephew. I have heard that you--pardon me--are corrupting him." And having thrown out this decisive word in her anger with the sisters, Ekaterina Ivanovna at once saw that she had gone too far. The sisters exchanged glances of such well-simulated perplexity and indignation that cleverer people than Ekaterina Ivanovna would have been taken in--they flushed and exclaimed altogether: "That's pleasant!" "How terrible!" "That's something new!" "Madam," said Darya coldly, "you are not over choice in your expressions. Before you make use of such words you should find out whether they are fitting!" "Of course, one can understand that," said Liudmilla, with the look of a charming girl forgiving an injury, "he's not a stranger to you. Naturally, you can't help being disturbed by this stupid gossip. Even strangers like ourselves were sorry for him and had to be kind to him. But everything in our town is made a crime at once. You have no idea what terrible, terrible people live here!" "Terrible people," repeated Valeria quietly, in a clear, fragile voice and shivered from head to foot as if she had come in contact with something unclean. "You ask him yourself," said Darya. "Just look at him; he's still a mere child. Perhaps you have got used to his naïveté, but one can see better from the outside that he's quite an unspoiled boy."