perfectly well that in reality we were to go to-morrow.

“I wish you could stop longer, both for your own sake and for Dimitri’s,” she said in a meditative manner. “At your age friendship is a weak thing.”

I felt that every one was looking at me, and waiting to see what I should say — though certainly Varenika made a pretence of looking at her aunt’s work. I felt, in fact, as though I were being put through an examination, and that it behoved me to figure in it as well as possible.

“Yes, to ME Dimitri’s friendship is most useful,” I replied, “but to HIM mine cannot be of any use at all, since he is a thousand times better than I.” (Dimitri could not hear what I said, or I should have feared his detecting the insincerity of my words.)