She listened and a smile of pleasure came over her face. Ilya noticed it. "I wanted to ask you----" he began, in some confusion. "Well?" The girl came closer and looked right into his eyes. He could not meet her glance, but hung his head and went on: "As far as I can make out, you don't care for tradesmen?" "Not much." "Why?" "Because they live on the work of others," she explained, speaking very distinctly. Ilya threw up his head, and his brows contracted. The words did not only astonish him, but pained him; and she said them so simply, so much as if it were a matter of course. "But--excuse me--that isn't true!" he said loudly, after a pause. Her face twitched and she blushed. "How much does this ribbon cost you?" she asked coldly and sternly. "Ribbon?--this ribbon?--Seventeen kopecks the arshin." "And how do you sell it?" "At twenty" "Very well. The three kopecks that you make don't really belong to you, but to the one who made the ribbon. Do you see?" "No," confessed Lunev frankly. A flame shot from her eyes. Ilya saw it, and was afraid, yet angered with himself because of his fear. "Yes. I thought it wouldn't be easy for you to understand such a simple idea," she said, and turned away towards the door. "But see, now--imagine you are a worker, that you've made all this yourself,"--she swept her hand round with a big gesture, and went on to explain to him how labour enriches all except the labourer. At first she spoke in her ordinary manner, coldly, distinctly, and her ugly face was unmoved; but presently her eyebrows quivered and contracted, her nostrils dilated, and, standing close to Ilya, with head erect, she hurled mighty words at him, nerved by her youthful, unshakeable confidence in their truth. "The retailer stands between the worker and the purchaser. He does nothing himself, he only increases the cost of the goods. Trading! It's only legal, permissible robbery." Ilya felt deeply hurt, but he could find no words to answer this bold girl, who told him to his face he was a loafer and a robber. He clenched his teeth and listened silently, but did not believe, he could not believe; and while he ransacked his brain for the word to controvert her argument, to silence her forthwith, while he marvelled at her boldness, the contemptuous phrases, so amazing to his ears, stirred in his mind the question: "Why--what have I done to her?" "All that is just not true," he interrupted her finally in a loud voice, feeling that he could not listen any longer without contradicting. "No--I can't agree with you." "Then disprove it!" the young girl replied quietly. She sat down on a stool, drew the long plait of her hair over her shoulder, and began to play with it. Lunev turned away to avoid her challenging glance. "I'll disprove it!" he cried, no longer able to contain himself. "I'll disprove it by my whole life. I--perhaps I did commit a great sin once before I came to this."