d that she could do nothing but blink for a long
time.

"It was your humane manner," she explained plaintively. "I have been
starving for, I won't say kindness, but just for a little civility, for
I don't know how long. And now you are angry...."

"But no, on the contrary," he protested. "I am very glad you trust me.
It's possible that later on I may..."

"Yes, if you were to get ill," she interrupted eagerly, "or meet some
bitter trouble, you would find I am not a useless fool. You have only to
let me know. I will come to you. I will indeed. And I will stick to you.
Misery and I are old acquaintances--but this life here is worse than
starving."

She paused anxiously, then in a voice for the first time sounding really
timid, she added--

"Or if you were engaged in some dangerous work. Sometimes a humble
companion--I would not want to know anything. I would follow you with
joy. I could carry out orders. I have the courage."

Razumov looked attentively at the scared round eyes, at the withered,
sallow, round cheeks. They were quivering about the corners of the
mouth.

"She wants to escape from here," he thought.

"Suppose I were to tell you that I am engaged in dangerous work?" he
uttered slowly.

She pressed the cat to her threadbare bosom with a breathless
exclamation. "Ah!" Then not much above a whisper: "Under Peter
Ivanovitch?"

"No, not under Peter Ivanovitch."

He read admiration in her eyes, and made an effort to smile.

"Then--alone?"

He held up his closed hand with the index raised. "Like this finger," he
said.

She was trembling slightly. But it occurred to Razumov that they might
have been observed from the house, and he became anxious to be gone. She
blinked, raising up to him her puckered face, and seemed to beg mutely
to be told something more, to be given a word of encouragement for her
starving, grotesque, and pathetic devotion.

"Can we be seen from the house?" asked Razumov confidentially.

She answered, without showing the slightest surprise at the question--

"No, we can't, on account of this end of the stables." And she added,
with an acuteness which surprised Razumov, "But anybody looking out of
an upstairs window would know that you have not passed through the gates
yet."

"Who's likely to spy out of the window?" queried Razumov. "Peter
Ivanovitch?"

She nodded.

"Why should he trouble his head?"

"He expects somebody this afternoon."

"You know the person?"

"The