“Oh, don’t bother about me, Maria Alexandrovna, thank you! I know all about it—oh, dear me, yes!—_I_ know all about it!” cried Sophia Petrovna, in her shrill squeaky voice, from among the crowd of guests who now surrounded her, and who seemed to derive immense satisfaction from this unexpected scene. “Oh, yes, I know all about it, I assure you! Your friend Nastasia came over and told me all! You got hold of the old prince, made him drunk and persuaded him to make an offer of marriage to your daughter Zina—whom nobody else will marry; and I daresay you suppose you are going to be a very great lady, indeed—a sort of duchess in lace and jewellery. Tfu! Don’t flatter yourself; you may not be aware that I, too, am a colonel’s lady! and if you don’t care to ask me to your betrothal parties, you needn’t: I scorn and despise you and your parties too! I’ve seen honester women than you, you know! I have dined at Countess Zalichvatsky’s; a chief commissioner proposed for my hand! A lot _I_ care for your invitations. Tfu!” “Look here, Sophia Petrovna,” said Maria Alexandrovna, beside herself with rage; “I assure you that people do not indulge in this sort of sally at respectable houses; especially in _the condition you are now in_! And let me tell you that if you do not immediately relieve me of your presence and eloquence, I shall be obliged to take the matter into my own hands!” “Oh, I know—you’ll get your people to turn me out! Don’t trouble yourself—I know the way out! Good-bye,—marry your daughter to whom you please, for all I care. And as for _you_, Natalia Dimitrievna, I will thank you not to laugh at me! I may not have been asked here, but at all events _I_ did not dance a can-can for the prince’s benefit. What may _you_ be laughing at, Mrs. Antipova? I suppose you haven’t heard that your _great friend_ Lushiloff has broken his leg?—he has just been taken home. Tfu! Good-bye, Maria Alexandrovna—good luck to you! Tfu!” Sophia Petrovna now disappeared. All the guests laughed; Maria Alexandrovna was in a state of indescribable fury. “I think the good lady must have been drinking!” said Natalia Dimitrievna, sweetly. “But what audacity!” “_Quelle abominable femme!_” “What a raving lunatic!” “But really, what excessively improper things she says!” “Yes, but what _could_ she have meant by a ’betrothal party?’ What sort of a betrothal party is this?” asked Felisata Michaelovna innocently. “It is too bad—too bad!” Maria Alexandrovna burst out at last. “It is just such abominable women as this that sow nonsensical rumours about! it is not the fact that there _are_ such women about, Felisata Michaelovna, that is so surprising; the astonishing part of the matter is that ladies can be found who support and encourage them, and believe their abominable tales, and——” “The prince, the prince!” cried all the guests at once. “Oh, oh, here he is—the dear, dear prince!”