Page:The Novels of Ivan Turgenev (volume XIV).djvu/165

Rh 'Quite free.'

'Ah! that's all I wanted to know.'

'Why do you want to know?'

'Oh, I wanted to—I wanted you to tell me that.'

'Our young lady is anxious to learn,' Punin observed from the sofa.

When I went out into the passage Musa accompanied me, not, of course, from politeness, but with the same malicious intent. I asked her, as I took leave, 'Can you really love him so much?'

'Whether I love him, or whether I don't, that's my affair,' she answered. 'What is to be, will be.'

'Mind what you're about; don't play with fire you'll get burnt.'

'Better be burnt than frozen. You with your good advice! And how can you tell he won't marry me? How do you know I so particularly want to get married? If I am ruined what business is it of yours?'

She slammed the door after me.

I remember that on the way home I reflected with some pleasure that my friend Vladimir Tarhov might find things rather hot for him with his new type He ought to have to pay something for his happiness!

That he would be happy, I was—regretfully—unable to doubt.