shade of disgust was visible in her
expression; she looked as though she were afraid of contamination in
this place.

She mechanically arranged her dress, and fidgeted uncomfortably,
eventually changing her seat to the other end of the sofa. Probably
she was unconscious of her own movements; but this very unconsciousness
added to the offensiveness of their suggested meaning.

At length she looked straight into Nastasia's eyes, and instantly read
all there was to read in her rival's expression. Woman understood woman!
Aglaya shuddered.

"You know of course why I requested this meeting?" she said at last,
quietly, and pausing twice in the delivery of this very short sentence.

"No--I know nothing about it," said Nastasia, drily and abruptly.

Aglaya blushed. Perhaps it struck her as very strange and impossible
that she should really be sitting here and waiting for "that woman's"
reply to her question.

At the first sound of Nastasia's voice a shudder ran through her frame.
Of course "that woman" observed and took in all this.

"You know quite well, but you are pretending to be ignorant," said
Aglaya, very low, with her eyes on the ground.

"Why should I?" asked Nastasia Philipovna, smiling slightly.

"You want to take advantage of my position, now that I am in your
house," continued Aglaya, awkwardly.

"For that position YOU are to blame and not I," said Nastasia, flaring
up suddenly. "_I_ did not invite YOU, but you me; and to this moment I
am quite ignorant as to why I am thus honoured."

Aglaya raised her head haughtily.

"Restrain your tongue!" she said. "I did not come here to fight you with
your own weapons.

"Oh! then you did come 'to fight,' I may conclude? Dear me!--and I
thought you were cleverer--"

They looked at one another with undisguised malice. One of these women
had written to the other, so lately, such letters as we have seen; and
it all was dispersed at their first meeting. Yet it appeared that
not one of the four persons in the room considered this in any degree
strange.

The prince who, up to yesterday, would not have believed that he could
even dream of such an impossible scene as this, stood and listened and
looked on, and felt as though he had long foreseen it all. The most
fantastic dream seemed suddenly to have been metamorphosed into the most
vivid reality.

One of these women so despised the other, and so longed to express her
contempt for her (perhaps she had only come f