CHAPTER XV
I REMEMBER she fixed a very intent look on my face, but without even moving from her seat or changing her position.
"I've won two hundred thousand francs!" I cried, as I flung down the last roll of notes.
The huge bundles of notes and piles of gold filled up the whole table; I could not take my eyes off it. At moments I completely forgot Polina. At one moment I began arranging the heap of banknotes, folding them up together, at the next I began undoing the rolls of gold and heaping them up in one pile; then I abandoned it all and strode rapidly up and down the room, lost in thought, then went up to the table, counting the money again. Suddenly, as though coming to myself, I ran to the door and locked it with two turns of the key. Then I stood pondering before my little portmanteau.
"Shall I put it in the portmanteau till to-morrow?" I said, suddenly remembering Polina and turning towards her.
She was still sitting in the same place without stirring, but watching me attentively. Her expression was somehow strange; I did not like that expression. I am not mistaken if I say that there was hatred in it.
I went up to her quickly.
"Polina, here are twenty-five thousand florins—that's fifty thousand francs—more, in fact. Take it, throw it in his face to-morrow."
She did not answer me.
"If you like I will take you away early in the morning. Shall I?"
She suddenly burst out laughing. She laughed for a long time.
I looked at her with wonder and a mortified feeling. That laugh was very much like sarcastic laughter at my expense, which had always been so frequent at the times of my most passionate declarations.
At last she ceased laughing and frowned; she looked at me sternly from under her brows.
"I won't take your money," she declared contemptuously.
"How? What's this?" I cried. "Polina, why?"
"I won't take money for nothing."
"I offer it you as a friend; I offer you my life."
