Lichonin looked straight at him, insolently, but only set his jaws and let it pass in silence.

Simanovsky began in his measured, incontrovertible tone, toying with the glasses of his pince-nez: 

“Your intention is splendid, gentlemen, beyond dispute.  But have you turned your attention to a certain shady aspect, so to speak?  For to open a dining room, to start some business—­all this in the beginning demands money, assistance—­somebody else’s back, so to speak.  The money is not grudged—­that is true, I agree with Lichonin; but then, does not such a beginning of an industrious life, when every step is provided for—­does it not lead to inevitable laxity and negligence, and, in the very end, to an indifferent disdain for business?  Even a child does not learn to walk until it has flopped down some fifty times.  No; if you really want to help this poor girl, you must give her a chance of getting on her feet at once, like a toiling being, and not like a drone.  True, there is a great temptation here—­the burden of labour, temporary need; but then, if she will surmount this, she will surmount the rest as well.”

“What, then, according to you, is she to become—­a dish-washer?” asked Soloviev with unbelief.

“Well, yes,” calmly retorted Simanovsky.  “A dish-washer, a laundress, a cook.  All toil elevates a human being.”

Lichonin shook his head.

“Words of gold.  Wisdom itself speaks with your lips, Simanovsky.  Dish-washer, cook, maid, housekeeper ... but, in the first place, it’s doubtful if she’s capable for that; in the second place, she has already been a maid and has tasted all the sweets of masters’ bawlings out, and masters’ pinches behind doors, in the corridor.  Tell me, is it possible you don’t know that ninety per cent, of prostitution is recruited from the number of female servants?  And, therefore, poor Liuba, at the very first injustice, at the first rebuff, will the more easily and readily go just there where I have gotten her out of; if not even worse, because for her that’s customary and not so frightful; and, perhaps, it will even seem desirable after the masters’ treatment.  And besides that, is it worth while for me—­that is, I want to say—­is it worth while for all of us, to go to so much trouble, to try so hard and put ourselves out so, if, after having saved a being from one slavery, we only plunge her into another?”

“Right,” confirmed Soloviev.

“Just as you wish,” drawled Simanovsky with a disdainful air.

“But as far as I’m concerned,” said the prince, “I’m ready, as a friend and a curious man, to be present at this experiment and to participate in it.  But even this morning I warned you, that there have been such experiments before and that they have always ended in ignominious failure, at least those of which we know personally; while those of which we know only by hearsay are dubious as regards authenticity.  But you have begun the business—­ and go on with it.  We are your helpers.”