asm. No meditation was necessary.
A sacrifice of many lives could alone--He fell silent without finishing
the phrase.

Peter Ivanovitch inclined his big hairy head slowly. After a moment he
proposed that they should go and see if Madame de S-- was now visible.

"We shall get some tea," he said, turning out of the shaded gloomy walk
with a brisker step.

The lady companion had been on the look out. Her dark skirt whisked into
the doorway as the two men came in sight round the corner. She ran off
somewhere altogether, and had disappeared when they entered the hall. In
the crude light falling from the dusty glass skylight upon the black
and white tessellated floor, covered with muddy tracks, their footsteps
echoed faintly. The great feminist led the way up the stairs. On the
balustrade of the first-floor landing a shiny tall hat reposed, rim
upwards, opposite the double door of the drawing-room, haunted, it
was said, by evoked ghosts, and frequented, it was to be supposed, by
fugitive revolutionists. The cracked white paint of the panels, the
tarnished gilt of the mouldings, permitted one to imagine nothing but
dust and emptiness within. Before turning the massive brass handle,
Peter Ivanovitch gave his young companion a sharp, partly critical,
partly preparatory glance.

"No one is perfect," he murmured discreetly. Thus, the possessor of a
rare jewel might, before opening the casket, warn the profane that no
gem perhaps is flawless.

He remained with his hand on the door-handle so long that Razumov
assented by a moody "No."

"Perfection itself would not produce that effect," pursued Peter
Ivanovitch, "in a world not meant for it. But you shall find there a
mind--no!--the quintessence of feminine intuition which will understand
any perplexity you may be suffering from by the irresistible,
enlightening force of sympathy. Nothing can remain obscure before
that--that--inspired, yes, inspired penetration, this true light of
femininity."

The gaze of the dark spectacles in its glossy steadfastness gave his
face an air of absolute conviction. Razumov felt a momentary shrinking
before that closed door.

"Penetration? Light," he stammered out. "Do you mean some sort of
thought-reading?"

Peter Ivanovitch seemed shocked.

"I mean something utterly different," he retorted, with a faint, pitying
smile.

Razumov began to feel angry, very much against his wish.

"This is very mysterious," he muttered through his teeth.