sure you can't look at any one with equanimity whose hair is cropped like mine.'
Madame Sipyagin slowly raised her eyebrows and bent her head, as though amazed at the free and easy way in which young girls nowadays enter into conversation; while Kallomyetsev gave a condescending simper.
'Of course,' he replied, 'I cannot but feel regret for lovely curls like yours, Marianna Vikentyevna, which have fallen beneath the remorseless scissors; but I have no feeling of antipathy; and, in any case, . . . your example would have . . . would have . . . proselytised me!'
Kallomyetsev could not find the Russian word, and did not want to speak French after his hostess's observations.
'Thank goodness, dear Marianna does not wear spectacles yet,' put in Madame Sipyagin, 'and has not parted with cuffs and collars, though she does study natural science, to my sincere regret; and is interested in the woman question too . . . Aren't you, Marianna?'
This was all said with the object of embarrassing Marianna; but she was not embarrassed.
'Yes, auntie,' she answered, ' I read everything that's written about it; I try to understand exactly what the question is.'
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