“What!—she offended me last week? is that what you you mean? Oh, but, my dear, I _had_ to go and have a peep at the prince—else, when should I have seen him? As if I would have gone _near_ her but for this wretched old prince. Imagine—chocolate handed round and _me left out_. I’ll let her have it for that, some day! Well, good-bye, _mon ange_: I must hurry off to Akulina, and let her know all about it. You may say good-bye to the prince; he won’t come near you again now! He has no memory left, you know, and Mrs. Antipova will simply carry him off bodily to her house. He’ll think it’s all right——They’re all afraid of you, you know; they think that you want to get hold of him—you understand! Zina, you know!” “_Quelle horreur!_” “Oh, yes, I know! I tell you—the whole town is talking about it! Mrs. Antipova is going to make him stay to dinner—and then she’ll just keep him! She’s doing it to spite _you_, my angel. I had a look in at her back premises. _Such_ arrangements, my dear. Knives clattering, people running about for champagne. I tell you what you must do—go and grab him as he comes out from Natalia Dimitrievna’s to Antipova’s to dinner. He promised _you_ first, he’s _your_ guest. Tfu! don’t you be laughed at by this brace of chattering magpies—good for nothing baggage, both of them. ‘Procuror’s lady,’ indeed! Why, I’m a Colonel’s wife. Tfu!—_Mais adieu, mon ange_. I have my own sledge at the door, or I’d go with you.” Having got rid of this walking newspaper, Maria Alexandrovna waited a moment, to free herself of a little of her super-abundant agitation. Mrs. Colonel’s advice was good and practical. There was no use losing time,—none to lose, in fact. But the greatest difficulty of all was as yet unsettled. Maria Alexandrovna flew to Zina’s room. Zina was walking up and down, pale, with hands folded and head bent on her bosom: there were tears in her eyes, but Resolve was there too, and sparkled in the glance which she threw on her mother as the latter entered the room. She hastily dried her tears, and a sarcastic smile played on her lips once more. “Mamma,” she began, anticipating her mother’s speech “you have already wasted much of your eloquence over me—too much! But you have not blinded me; I am not a child. To do the work of a sister of mercy, without the slightest call thereto,—to justify one’s meanness—meanness proceeding in reality from the purest egotism, by attributing to it noble ends,—all this is a sort of Jesuitism which cannot deceive _me_. Listen! I repeat, all _this could not deceive me_, and I wish you to understand that!” “But, dearest child!” began her mother, in some alarm.