“Oh no; not at all.”
“Oh-h-h! I’m sorry for that. I thought you were. I wonder why I always thought so—but at all events you’ll help me, won’t you? Because I’ve chosen you, you know.”
“Aglaya Ivanovna, it’s absurd.”
“But I will, I will run away!” she cried—and her eyes flashed again with anger—“and if you don’t agree I shall go and marry Gavrila Ardalionovitch! I won’t be considered a horrible girl, and accused of goodness knows what.”
“Are you out of your mind?” cried the prince, almost starting from his seat. “What do they accuse you of? Who accuses you?”
“At home, everybody, mother, my sisters, Prince S., even that detestable Colia! If they don’t say it, they think it. I told them all so to their faces. I told mother and father and everybody. Mamma was ill all the day after it, and
