She was so confounded that she could do nothing but blink for a long time.

“It was your humane manner,” she explained plaintively.  “I have been starving for, I won’t say kindness, but just for a little civility, for I don’t know how long.  And now you are angry....”

“But no, on the contrary,” he protested.  “I am very glad you trust me.  It’s possible that later on I may...”

“Yes, if you were to get ill,” she interrupted eagerly, “or meet some bitter trouble, you would find I am not a useless fool.  You have only to let me know.  I will come to you.  I will indeed.  And I will stick to you.  Misery and I are old acquaintances—­but this life here is worse than starving.”

She paused anxiously, then in a voice for the first time sounding really timid, she added—­

“Or if you were engaged in some dangerous work.  Sometimes a humble companion—­I would not want to know anything.  I would follow you with joy.  I could carry out orders.  I have the courage.”

Razumov looked attentively at the scared round eyes, at the withered, sallow, round cheeks.  They were quivering about the corners of the mouth.

“She wants to escape from here,” he thought.

“Suppose I were to tell you that I am engaged in dangerous work?” he uttered slowly.

She pressed the cat to her threadbare bosom with a breathless exclamation.  “Ah!” Then not much above a whisper:  “Under Peter Ivanovitch?”

“No, not under Peter Ivanovitch.”

He read admiration in her eyes, and made an effort to smile.

“Then—­alone?”

He held up his closed hand with the index raised.  “Like this finger,” he said.

She was trembling slightly.  But it occurred to Razumov that they might have been observed from the house, and he became anxious to be gone.  She blinked, raising up to him her puckered face, and seemed to beg mutely to be told something more, to be given a word of encouragement for her starving, grotesque, and pathetic devotion.

“Can we be seen from the house?” asked Razumov confidentially.

She answered, without showing the slightest surprise at the question—­

“No, we can’t, on account of this end of the stables.”  And she added, with an acuteness which surprised Razumov, “But anybody looking out of an upstairs window would know that you have not passed through the gates yet.”

“Who’s likely to spy out of the window?” queried Razumov.  “Peter Ivanovitch?”

She nodded.

“Why should he trouble his head?”

“He expects somebody this afternoon.”

“You know the person?”

“There’s more than one.”

She had lowered her eyelids.  Razumov looked at her curiously.

“Of course.  You hear everything they say.”

She murmured without any animosity—­

“So do the tables and chairs.”