The girl shrugged her shoulders, and all at once, as though she had received a sudden shove, got up from her chair.
'Why, Musa, Musotchka,' Tarhov expostulated plaintively. 'Stay a little!'
'No, no, I can't.' She went quickly to the door, took hold of the handle. . . .
'Well, at least, take the book!'
'Another time.'
Tarhov rushed towards the girl, but at that instant she darted out of the room. He almost knocked his nose against the door. 'What a girl! She's a regular little viper!' he declared with some vexation, and then sank into thought.
I stayed at Tarhov's. I wanted to find out what was the meaning of it all. Tarhov was not disposed to be reserved. He told me that the girl was a milliner; that he had seen her for the first time three weeks before in a fashionable shop, where he had gone on a commission for his sister, who lived in the provinces, to buy a hat; that he had fallen in love with her at first sight, and that next day he had succeeded in speaking to her in the street; that she had herself, it seemed, taken rather a fancy to him.
'Only, please, don't you suppose,' he added with warmth,—'don't you imagine any harm of her. So far, at any rate, there's been nothing of that sort between us.'
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