'Yes, you do.' (She smiled ... I was seized with spiteful fury.) ...
'You pretend to be indifferent to a man and ... and you write letters
to him,' I added in a whisper.

Sophia's cheeks grew white, but she did not turn to me: she played the
nocturne through to the end, got up, and closed the piano.

'Where are you going?' I asked her in some perplexity. 'You have no
answer to make me?'

'What answer can I make you? I don't know what you 're talking
about.... And I am not good at pretending....'

She began putting by the music.

The blood rushed to my head. 'No; you know what I am talking about,' I
said, and I too got up from my seat; 'or if you like, I will remind you
directly of some of your expressions in one letter: "be as careful as
before"....'

Sophia gave a faint start.

'I never should have expected this of you,' she said at last.

'I never should have expected,' I retorted, 'that you, Sophia
Nikolaevna, would have deigned to notice a man who ...'

Sophia turned with a rapid movement to me; I instinctively stepped back
a little from her; her eyes, always half closed, were so wide open that
they looked immense, and they glittered wrathfully under her frowning