y dear boy, I feel sure that God has sent you to Petersburg from
Switzerland on purpose for me. Maybe you will have other things to do,
besides, but you are sent chiefly for my sake, I feel sure of it. God
sent you to me! Au revoir! Alexandra, come with me, my dear."

Mrs. Epanchin left the room.

Gania--confused, annoyed, furious--took up his portrait, and turned to
the prince with a nasty smile on his face.

"Prince," he said, "I am just going home. If you have not changed your
mind as to living with us, perhaps you would like to come with me. You
don't know the address, I believe?"

"Wait a minute, prince," said Aglaya, suddenly rising from her seat, "do
write something in my album first, will you? Father says you are a most
talented caligraphist; I'll bring you my book in a minute." She left the
room.

"Well, au revoir, prince," said Adelaida, "I must be going too." She
pressed the prince's hand warmly, and gave him a friendly smile as she
left the room. She did not so much as look at Gania.

"This is your doing, prince," said Gania, turning on the latter so soon
as the others were all out of the room. "This is your doing, sir! YOU
have been telling them that I am going to be married!" He said this in
a hurried whisper, his eyes flashing with rage and his face ablaze. "You
shameless tattler!"

"I assure you, you are under a delusion," said the prince, calmly and
politely. "I did not even know that you were to be married."

"You heard me talking about it, the general and me. You heard me say
that everything was to be settled today at Nastasia Philipovna's, and
you went and blurted it out here. You lie if you deny it. Who else
could have told them Devil take it, sir, who could have told them except
yourself? Didn't the old woman as good as hint as much to me?"

"If she hinted to you who told her you must know best, of course; but I
never said a word about it."

"Did you give my note? Is there an answer?" interrupted Gania,
impatiently.

But at this moment Aglaya came back, and the prince had no time to
reply.

"There, prince," said she, "there's my album. Now choose a page and
write me something, will you? There's a pen, a new one; do you mind a
steel one? I have heard that you caligraphists don't like steel pens."

Conversing with the prince, Aglaya did not even seem to notice that
Gania was in the room. But while the prince was getting his pen ready,
finding a page, and making his preparations to wri