“How—‘_mon ami_?’ ” cried the enraged Mosgliakoff. “_Mon ami_, indeed! the moment after you have abused and reviled me like a pickpocket! No, no! Not quite so green, my good lady! I’m not to be so easily imposed upon again!” “I am sorry, extremely sorry, to see you in such a _strange_ condition of mind, Paul Alexandrovitch! What expressions you use! You do not take the trouble to choose your words before ladies—oh, fie!” “Before ladies? Ho ho! You—you are—you are anything you like—but not a lady!” yelled Mosgliakoff. I don’t quite know what he meant, but it was something very terrible, you may be sure! Maria Alexandrovna looked benignly in his face: “Sit down!” she said, sorrowfully, showing him a chair, the same that the old prince had reclined in a quarter of an hour before. “But listen, _will_ you listen, Maria Alexandrovna? You look at me just as though you were not the least to blame; in fact, as though _I_ were the guilty party! Really, Maria Alexandrovna, this is a little _too_ much of a good thing! No human being can stand that sort of thing, Maria Alexandrovna! You must be aware of that fact!” “My dear friend,” replied Maria Alexandrovna—“you will allow me to continue to call you by that name, for you have no better friend than I am!—my friend, you are suffering—you are amazed and bewildered; your heart is sore, and therefore the tone of your remarks to me is perhaps not surprising. But I have made up my mind to open my heart to you, especially as I am, perhaps, in some degree to blame before you. Sit down; let us talk it over!” Maria Alexandrovna’s voice was tender to a sickly extent. Her face showed the pain she was suffering. The amazed Mosgliakoff sat down beside her in the arm-chair. “You hid somewhere, and listened, I suppose?” she began, looking reproachfully into his face. “Yes I did, of course I did; and a good thing too! What a fool I should have looked if I hadn’t! At all events now I know what you have been plotting against me!” replied the injured man, rudely; encouraging and supporting himself by his own fury. “And you—and you—with your principles, and with your bringing up, could condescend to such an action—Oh, oh!” Mosgliakoff jumped up. “Maria Alexandrovna, this is a little too much!” he cried. “Consider what _you_ condescend to do, with _your_ principles, and _then_ judge of other people.” “One more question,” she continued, without replying to his outburst: “who recommended you to be an eavesdropper; who told you anything; who is the spy here? That’s what I wish to know!” “Oh, excuse me; that I shall _not_ tell you!” “Very well; I know already. I said, Paul, that I was in some degree to blame before you. But if you look into the matter you will find that if I am to blame it is solely in consequence of my anxiety to do you a good turn!” “_What?_ a good turn—_me_? No, no, madam! I assure you I am not to be caught again! I’m not quite such a fool!”