Foedor told her all that had happened. The young girl listened to his
story with an unmoved countenance, but her lips, the only part of her
face which seemed to have any colour, became as white as the
dressing-gown she was wearing. Foedor, on the contrary, was consumed by
a fever, and appeared nearly out of his senses.

"Now, what do you intend to do?" said Vaninka in the same cold tone in
which she had asked the other questions.

"You ask me what I intend to do, Vaninka? What do you wish me to do?
What can I do, but flee from St. Petersburg, and seek death in the first
corner of Russia where war may break out, in order not to repay my
patron's kindness by some infamous baseness?"

"You are a fool," said Vaninka, with a mixed smile of triumph and
contempt; for from that moment she felt her superiority over Foedor, and
saw that she would rule him like a queen for the rest of her life.

"Then order me--am I not your slave?" cried the young soldier.

"You must stay here," said Vaninka.

"Stay here?"

"Yes; only women and children will thus confess themselves beaten at the
first blow: a man, if he be worthy of the name, fights."

"Fight!--against whom?--against your father? Never!"

"Who suggested that you should contend against my father? It is against