ling at?" she added, knitting her brow.
"What do YOU think of when you go mooning about alone? I suppose
you imagine yourself a field-marshal, and think you have conquered
Napoleon?"

"Well, I really have thought something of the sort now and then,
especially when just dozing off," laughed the prince. "Only it is the
Austrians whom I conquer--not Napoleon."

"I don't wish to joke with you, Lef Nicolaievitch. I shall see Hippolyte
myself. Tell him so. As for you, I think you are behaving very badly,
because it is not right to judge a man's soul as you are judging
Hippolyte's. You have no gentleness, but only justice--so you are
unjust."

The prince reflected.

"I think you are unfair towards me," he said. "There is nothing wrong
in the thoughts I ascribe to Hippolyte; they are only natural. But of
course I don't know for certain what he thought. Perhaps he thought
nothing, but simply longed to see human faces once more, and to hear
human praise and feel human affection. Who knows? Only it all came out
wrong, somehow. Some people have luck, and everything comes out right
with them; others have none, and never a thing turns out fortunately."

"I suppose you have felt that in your own case," said Aglaya.

"Yes, I have," replied the prince, quite unsuspicious of any irony in
the remark.

"H'm--well, at all events, I shouldn't have fallen asleep here, in your
place. It wasn't nice of you, that. I suppose you fall asleep wherever
you sit down?"

"But I didn't sleep a wink all night. I walked and walked about, and
went to where the music was--"

"What music?"

"Where they played last night. Then I found this bench and sat down, and
thought and thought--and at last I fell fast asleep."

"Oh, is that it? That makes a difference, perhaps. What did you go to
the bandstand for?"

"I don't know; I---"

"Very well--afterwards. You are always interrupting me. What woman was
it you were dreaming about?"

"It was--about--you saw her--"

"Quite so; I understand. I understand quite well. You are very--Well,
how did she appear to you? What did she look like? No, I don't want to
know anything about her," said Aglaya, angrily; "don't interrupt me--"

She paused a moment as though getting breath, or trying to master her
feeling of annoyance.

"Look here; this is what I called you here for. I wish to make you a--to
ask you to be my friend. What do you stare at me like that for?" she
added, almost angrily.

The prince c