the sweet hopes which I permitted myself to indulge for some time. I regret the past, but I trust that you will not detect in my behaviour anything unworthy of a gentleman and an honest man (gentilhomme et honnête homme). Having lost almost all my money in loans to your stepfather, I find myself compelled to make the utmost use of what is left to me; I have already sent word to my friend in Petersburg to arrange at once for the sale of the estates he has mortgaged to me; knowing, however, that your frivolous stepfather has squandered your private fortune I have determined to forgive him fifty thousand francs, and I am returning him part of my claims on his property equivalent to that sum, so that you are now put in a position to regain all you have lost by demanding the property from him by legal process. I hope, Mademoiselle, that in the present position of affairs my action will be very advantageous to you. I hope, too, that by this action I am fully performing the duty of a man and a gentleman. Rest assured that your memory is imprinted upon my heart for ever."
"Well, that's all clear," I said, turning to Polina; "surely you could have expected nothing else," I added, with indignation.
"I expected nothing," she answered, with apparent composure, though there was a tremor in her voice; "I had made up my mind long ago; I read his mind and knew what he was thinking. He thought that I was trying—that I should insist…" (She broke off without finishing her sentence, bit her lips and was silent.) "I purposely doubled my scorn towards him," she began again. "I waited to see what was coming from him. If a telegram had come telling of the inheritance I'd have flung him the money borrowed from that idiot, my stepfather, and would have sent him about his business. He has been hateful to me for ages and ages. Oh! he was not the same man! a thousand times over, tell you, he was different! but now, now… Oh, with what happiness I could fling that fifty thousand in his nasty face and spit and stamp…"
"But the security, the IOU for that fifty thousand, is in the General's hands. Take it and return it to De Grieux."
"Oh, that's not the same thing, that's not the same thing…"
"Yes, that's true, it's not the same thing. Besides, what is the General capable of now? And Granny!" I cried suddenly.
Polina looked at me, as it were absent-mindedly and impatiently.
