erything, first because
I dropped from the moon, that seems to be settled here, now, by every
one; and, secondly, because I told them a pretty little story, and got
you all out of a scrape, didn't they, didn't they?"

"That is, you told your story so as to leave them in doubt and suggest
some compact and collusion between us, when there was no collusion and
I'd not asked you to do anything."

"Just so, just so!" Pyotr Stepanovitch caught him up, apparently
delighted. "That's just what I did do, for I wanted you to see that I
implied it; I exerted myself chiefly for your sake, for I caught you and
wanted to compromise you, above all I wanted to find out how far you're
afraid."

"It would be interesting to know why you are so open now?"

"Don't be angry, don't be angry, don't glare at me.... You're not,
though. You wonder why I am so open? Why, just because it's all changed
now; of course, it's over, buried under the sand. I've suddenly changed
my ideas about you. The old way is closed; now I shall never compromise
you in the old way, it will be in a new way now."

"You've changed your tactics?"

"There are no tactics. Now it's for you to decide in everything, that
is, if you want to, say yes, and if you want to, say no. There you have
my new tactics. And I won't say a word about our cause till you bid me
yourself. You laugh? Laugh away. I'm laughing myself. But I'm in earnest
now, in earnest, in earnest, though a man who is in such a hurry is
stupid, isn't he? Never mind, I may be stupid, but I'm in earnest, in
earnest."

He really was speaking in earnest in quite a different tone, and with a
peculiar excitement, so that Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch looked at him with
curiosity.

"You say you've changed your ideas about me?" he asked.

"I changed my ideas about you at the moment when you drew your hands
back after Shatov's attack, and, that's enough, that's enough, no
questions, please, I'll say nothing more now."

He jumped up, waving his hands as though waving off questions. But as
there were no questions, and he had no reason to go away, he sank into
an arm-chair again, somewhat reassured.

"By the way, in parenthesis," he rattled on at once, "some people here
are babbling that you'll kill him, and taking bets about it, so that
Lembke positively thought of setting the police on, but Yulia Mihailovna
forbade it.... But enough about that, quite enough, I only spoke of it
to let you know. By the way, I moved the