“Don’t correct yourself, but rather say that we are so bad,” said Katherine Alexeievna, playing with the words, and pretending not to see Nekhludoff’s gravity.

“There is nothing worse than to confess being in low spirits,” said Missy.  “I never confess it to myself, and that is why I am always cheerful.  Well, come to my room.  We shall try to drive away your mauvais humeur.”

Nekhludoff experienced the feeling which a horse must feel when brushed down before the bridle is put on and it is led to be harnessed to the wagon.  But to-day he was not at all disposed to draw.  He excused himself and began to take leave.  Missy kept his hand longer than usual.

“Remember that what is important to you is important to your friends,” she said.  “Will you come to-morrow?”

“I don’t think I will,” said Nekhludoff.  And feeling ashamed, without knowing himself whether for her or for himself, he blushed and hastily departed.

“What does it mean?  Comme cela m’intrigue,” said Katherine Alexeievna, when Nekhludoff had left.  “I must find it out.  Some affaire d’amour propre; il est tres susceptible notre cher Mitia.”

“Plutot une affaire d’amour sale,” Missy was going to say.  Her face was now wan and pale.  But she did not give expression to that passage, and only said:  “We all have our bright days and gloomy days.”

“Is it possible that he, too, should deceive me?” she thought.  “After all that has happened, it would be very wrong of him.”

If Missy had had to explain what she meant by the words, “After all that has happened,” she could have told nothing definite, and yet she undoubtedly knew that not only had he given her cause to hope, but he had almost made his promise—­not in so many words, but by his glances, his smiles, his innuendos, his silence.  She considered him her own, and to lose him would be very painful to her.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

“It is shameful and disgusting,” Nekhludoff meditated, while returning home on foot along the familiar streets.  The oppressive feeling which he had experienced while speaking to Missy clung to him.  He understood that nominally, if one may so express himself, he was in the right; he had never said anything to bind himself to her; had made no offer, but in reality he felt that he had bound himself to her, that he had promised to be hers.  Yet he felt in all his being that he could not marry her.

“It is shameful and disgusting,” he repeated, not only of his relations to Missy, but of everything.  “Everything is disgusting and shameful,” he repeated to himself, as he ascended the steps of his house.

“I shall take no supper,” he said to Kornei, who followed him into the dining-room, where the table was set for his supper.  “You may go.”