Razumov smiled amiably and moved out of her way.  She turned her head to keep her scared eyes on him.

“I know what you have been told in there,” she affirmed, without preliminaries.  Her tone, in contrast with her manner, had an unexpectedly assured character which put Razumov at his ease.

“Do you?  You must have heard all sorts of talk on many occasions in there.”

She varied her phrase, with the same incongruous effect of positiveness.

“I know to a certainty what you have been told to do.”

“Really?” Razumov shrugged his shoulders a little.  He was about to pass on with a bow, when a sudden thought struck him.  “Yes.  To be sure!  In your confidential position you are aware of many things,” he murmured, looking at the cat.

That animal got a momentary convulsive hug from the lady companion.

“Everything was disclosed to me a long time ago,” she said.

“Everything,” Razumov repeated absently.

“Peter Ivanovitch is an awful despot,” she jerked out.

Razumov went on studying the stripes on the grey fur of the cat.

“An iron will is an integral part of such a temperament.  How else could he be a leader?  And I think that you are mistaken in—­”

“There!” she cried.  “You tell me that I am mistaken.  But I tell you all the same that he cares for no one.”  She jerked her head up.  “Don’t you bring that girl here.  That’s what you have been told to do—­to bring that girl here.  Listen to me; you had better tie a stone round her neck and throw her into the lake.”

Razumov had a sensation of chill and gloom, as if a heavy cloud had passed over the sun.

“The girl?” he said.  “What have I to do with her?”

“But you have been told to bring Nathalie Haldin here.  Am I not right?  Of course I am right.  I was not in the room, but I know.  I know Peter Ivanovitch sufficiently well.  He is a great man.  Great men are horrible.  Well, that’s it.  Have nothing to do with her.  That’s the best you can do, unless you want her to become like me—­disillusioned!  Disillusioned!”

“Like you,” repeated Razumov, glaring at her face, as devoid of all comeliness of feature and complexion as the most miserable beggar is of money.  He smiled, still feeling chilly:  a peculiar sensation which annoyed him.  “Disillusioned as to Peter Ivanovitch!  Is that all you have lost?”

She declared, looking frightened, but with immense conviction, “Peter Ivanovitch stands for everything.”  Then she added, in another tone, “Keep the girl away from this house.”

“And are you absolutely inciting me to disobey Peter Ivanovitch just because—­because you are disillusioned?”

She began to blink.

“Directly I saw you for the first time I was comforted.  You took your hat off to me.  You looked as if one could trust you.  Oh!”

She shrank before Razumov’s savage snarl of, “I have heard something like this before.”