“I wish you would speak plainly, you pig of a fellow!” said Velchaninoff to himself, “I hate hints!” His own anger was on the rise, and he had long been struggling with his self-restraint. “Look here,—tell me this, since you consider Bagantoff to have been guilty before you (as I see you do) surely you must be glad that your betrayer is dead? What are you so angry about?” “Glad! Why should I be glad?” “I judge by what I should imagine your feelings to be.” “Ha-ha! well, this time you are a little bit in error as to my feelings, for once! A certain sage has said ’my good enemy is dead, but I have a still better one alive! ha-ha!” “Well but you saw him alive for five years at a stretch,—I should have thought that was enough to contemplate his features in!” said Velchaninoff angrily and contemptuously. “Yes, but how was I to know then, sir?” snapped Pavel Pavlovitch—jumping out of an ambush once more, as it were,—delighted to be asked a question which he had long awaited; “why, what do you take me for, Alexey Ivanovitch?” at this moment there was in the speaker’s face a new expression altogether, transfiguring entirely the hitherto merely disagreeably malicious look upon it. “Do you mean to say you knew nothing of it?” said Velchaninoff in astonishment. “How! Didn’t know? As if I could have known it and——Oh, you race of Jupiters! you reckon a man to be no better than a dog, and judge of him by your own sentiments. Look here, sir,—there, look at that.” So saying, he brought his fist madly down upon the table with a resounding bang, and immediately afterwards looked frightened at his own act. Velchaninoff’s face beamed. “Listen, Pavel Pavlovitch,” he said; “it is entirely the same thing to me whether you knew or did not know all about it. If you did not know, so much the more honourable is it for you; but—I can’t understand why you should have selected me for your confidant.” “I wasn’t talking of you; don’t be angry, it wasn’t about you,” muttered Pavel Pavlovitch, with his eyes fixed on the ground. At this moment, Mavra entered with the champagne. “Here it is!” cried Pavel Pavlovitch, immensely delighted at the appearance of the wine. “Now then, tumblers my good girl, tumblers quick! Capital! Thank you, we don’t require you any more, my good Mavra. What! you’ve drawn the cork? Excellent creature. Well, ta-ta! off with you.” Mavra’s advent with the bottle so encouraged him that he again looked at Velchaninoff with some defiance. “Now confess,” he giggled suddenly, “confess that you are very curious indeed to hear about all this, and that it is by no means ‘entirely the same to you,’ as you declared! Confess that you would be miserable if I were to get up and go away this very minute without telling you anything more.” “Not the least in the world, I assure you!” Pavel Pavlovitch smiled; and his smile said, as plainly as words could, “That’s a lie!” “Well, let’s to business,” he said, and poured out two glasses of champagne.