ef pause she
went on: 'He has grown more confiding now; he talks to me. He used to
avoid me before. Though, indeed, I didn't seek his society either. He's
more friends with Katya.'

Bazarov felt irritated. 'A woman can't help humbugging, of course!' he
thought. 'You say he used to avoid you,' he said aloud, with a chilly
smile; 'but it is probably no secret to you that he was in love with
you?'

'What! he too?' fell from Anna Sergyevna's lips.

'He too,' repeated Bazarov, with a submissive bow. 'Can it be you
didn't know it, and I've told you something new?'

Anna Sergyevna dropped her eyes. 'You are mistaken, Yevgeny
Vassilyitch.'

'I don't think so. But perhaps I ought not to have mentioned it.' 'And
don't you try telling me lies again for the future,' he added to
himself.

'Why not? But I imagine that in this too you are attributing too much
importance to a passing impression. I begin to suspect you are inclined
to exaggeration.'

'We had better not talk about it, Anna Sergyevna.'

'Oh, why?' she retorted; but she herself led the conversation into
another channel. She was still ill at ease with Bazarov, though she had
told him, and assured herself that everything was forgotten. While she
was exchanging the simplest sentences with him, even while she was
jesting with him, she was conscious of a faint spasm of dread. So
people on a steamer at sea talk and laugh carelessly, for all the world
as though they were on dry land; but let only the slightest hitch
occur, let the least sign be seen of anything out of the common, and at
once on every face there comes out an expression of peculiar alarm,
betraying the constant consciousness of constant danger.

Anna Sergyevna's conversation with Bazarov did not last long. She began
to seem absorbed in thought, answered abstractedly, and suggested at
last that they should go into the hall, where they found the princess
and Katya. 'But where is Arkady Nikolaitch?' inquired the lady of the
house; and on hearing that he had not shown himself for more than an
hour, she sent for him. He was not very quickly found; he had hidden
himself in the very thickest part of the garden, and with his chin
propped on his folded hands, he was sitting lost in meditation. They
were deep and serious meditations, but not mournful. He knew Anna
Sergyevna was sitting alone with Bazarov, and he felt no jealousy, as
once he had; on the contrary, his face slowly brightened; he seemed to
be at onc