ng
his anxiety to catch them up, she smiled ironically, and then looked
back no more. At length, just as they neared the house, General Epanchin
came out and met them; he had only just arrived from town.

His first word was to inquire after Evgenie Pavlovitch. But Lizabetha
stalked past him, and neither looked at him nor answered his question.

He immediately judged from the faces of his daughters and Prince S. that
there was a thunderstorm brewing, and he himself already bore evidences
of unusual perturbation of mind.

He immediately button-holed Prince S., and standing at the front door,
engaged in a whispered conversation with him. By the troubled aspect of
both of them, when they entered the house, and approached Mrs. Epanchin,
it was evident that they had been discussing very disturbing news.

Little by little the family gathered together upstairs in Lizabetha
Prokofievna's apartments, and Prince Muishkin found himself alone on
the verandah when he arrived. He settled himself in a corner and sat
waiting, though he knew not what he expected. It never struck him that
he had better go away, with all this disturbance in the house. He seemed
to have forgotten all the world, and to be ready to sit on where he was
for years on end. From upstairs he caught sounds of excited conversation
every now and then.

He could not say how long he sat there. It grew late and became quite
dark.

Suddenly Aglaya entered the verandah. She seemed to be quite calm,
though a little pale.

Observing the prince, whom she evidently did not expect to see there,
alone in the corner, she smiled, and approached him:

"What are you doing there?" she asked.

The prince muttered something, blushed, and jumped up; but Aglaya
immediately sat down beside him; so he reseated himself.

She looked suddenly, but attentively into his face, then at the window,
as though thinking of something else, and then again at him.

"Perhaps she wants to laugh at me," thought the prince, "but no; for if
she did she certainly would do so."

"Would you like some tea? I'll order some," she said, after a minute or
two of silence.

"N-no thanks, I don't know--"

"Don't know! How can you not know? By-the-by, look here--if someone
were to challenge you to a duel, what should you do? I wished to ask you
this--some time ago--"

"Why? Nobody would ever challenge me to a duel!"

"But if they were to, would you be dreadfully frightened?"

"I dare say I should b