feeling in the matter?"

"I do not care whether you are so or not," answered Polina with
calm indifference. "Well, since you ask me, I DO doubt your
ability to take anything seriously. You are capable of worrying,
but not deeply. You are too ill-regulated and unsettled a person
for that. But why do you want money? Not a single one of the reasons
which you have given can be looked upon as serious."

"By the way," I interrupted, "you say you want to pay off a
debt. It must be a large one. Is it to the Frenchman?"

"What do you mean by asking all these questions? You are very
clever today. Surely you are not drunk?"

"You know that you and I stand on no ceremony, and that
sometimes I put to you very plain questions. I repeat that I am
your, slave--and slaves cannot be shamed or offended."

"You talk like a child. It is always possible to comport
oneself with dignity. If one has a quarrel it ought to elevate
rather than to degrade one."

"A maxim straight from the copybook! Suppose I CANNOT comport
myself with dignity. By that I mean that, though I am a man of
self-respect, I am unable to carry off a situation properly. Do
you know the reason? It is because we Russians are too richly and
multifariously gifted to be able at once to find the proper mode
of expression. It is all a question of mode. Most of us are so
bounteously endowed with intellect as to require also a spice of