At about two o'clock they happened somehow to be suddenly left alone together in the drawing-room. Each of them was immediately aware that the moment of the inevitable conflict had come, and so, after a momentary hesitation, they gradually approached each other. Valentina Mihalovna was faintly smiling, Marianna's lips were compressed; they were both pale. As she moved across the room, Valentina Mihalovna looked to right and to left and picked a leaf of geranium . . . Marianna's eyes were fixed directly upon the smiling face approaching her.
Madame Sipyagin was the first to stop, and, drumming with her finger-tips on the back of the chair: 'Marianna Vikentyevna,' she said in a careless voice, 'we have, I think, entered upon a correspondence with one another.. . . Living under one roof as we do, that is rather odd, and you are aware that I am not fond of oddities of any sort.'
'It was not I began that correspondence, Valentina Mihalovna.'
'No.. . . You are right. I am to blame for the oddity this time; but I could find no other means to arouse in you a feeling of. . . how shall I say? . . . a feeling of———'
'Speak out, Valentina Mihalovna; don't mince matters—don't be afraid of offending me.'
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