"D'you know, Vyera, I'm still considering if I shall go to Poluektov or not."
"Perhaps I will. He's old and rich, and those are two important points. But he's miserly. I want five thousand roubles in my name in the bank, and a hundred and fifty roubles a month, and he only offers three thousand and a hundred."
"All right, as you like," said Lipa, quietly, and turned again to Ilya. "Now, young man, let us talk a little. I like you, you've a nice face and serious eyes. What will you say to that?"
"I? I shan't say anything," said he, laughing carelessly, but feeling clearly how this woman ensnared him with her magic.
"Nothing? oh! you're bored;--what are you?"
"R--really? I thought you were a clerk in a bank, or in some shop. You look very good form."
"I like cleanliness," said Ilya. He felt oppressively hot, and his head was in a whirl with the perfume.
"You like cleanliness?--that's very nice. Are you a good hand at guessing?"
"Can't you guess that you're in the way here, eh;" and she looked right through him with her blue eyes.
"Oh! of course. I'll go," said Ilya confused.
"Wait a minute! Vyera, may I take this youngster away?"
"Of course, if he wants to go," answered Vyera, laughing.
"But where?" asked Ilya, in great excitement.
"Oh! go along you silly fellow!" cried Pashka.
Ilya stood there dazed and laughed vaguely, but the beautiful lady took his hand and led him out, saying in her quiet way: "You're not tamed yet, and I'm capricious and obstinate. If I made up my mind to put out the sun, I'd climb on the roof and blow at it till I'd used my last breath. Now you know what I'm like."
Ilya went with her hand in hand, hardly hearing her words and not understanding at all: he only felt she was so warm, and soft and fragrant.
His intimacy with Olympiada, so unexpectedly begun from a woman's whim, rendered Ilya at first quite arrogant. A proud self-confident feeling awakened in him, healing the little wounds that life had dealt his heart.
The thought that a lovely well-dressed lady gave him her precious kisses out of pure affection and demanded nothing in return, raised him more and more in his own eyes, and he felt as though he were floating in a broad stream, borne along by a peaceful flood that caressed his body tenderly and waked strength and courage in his limbs.