“Come along, Colia, I want to see your father. I have an idea,” said the prince.
Aglaya had not foreseen that particular calamity. She herself looked wonderfully beautiful this evening. All three sisters were dressed very tastefully, and their hair was done with special care.

Aglaya did not so much as glance at the new arrivals, but went on with her recitation, gazing at the prince the while in an affected manner, and at him alone. It was clear to him that she was doing all this with some special object.

“But, you wretched man, at least she must have said something? There must be _some_ answer from her!”

“Oh no! I know she only laughs at him; she has made a fool of him all along.”

“Come, come, come! There, you must not cry, that will do. You are a good child! God will forgive you, because you knew no better. Come now, be a man! You know presently you will be ashamed.”
A tear glistened on her cheek. At the sight of it Hippolyte seemed amazed. He lifted his hand timidly and, touched the tear with his finger, smiling like a child.
“Of course not,” replied the prince; “there are none, except myself. I believe I am the last and only one. As to my forefathers, they have always been a poor lot; my own father was a sublieutenant in the army. I don’t know how Mrs. Epanchin comes into the Muishkin family, but she is descended from the Princess Muishkin, and she, too, is the last of her line.”
“I assure you this business left me no peace for many a long year. Why did I do it? I was not in love with her myself; I’m afraid it was simply mischief--pure ‘cussedness’ on my part.
“The owner was now some forty yards ahead of me, and was very soon lost in the crowd. I ran after him, and began calling out; but as I knew nothing to say excepting ‘hey!’ he did not turn round. Suddenly he turned into the gate of a house to the left; and when I darted in after him, the gateway was so dark that I could see nothing whatever. It was one of those large houses built in small tenements, of which there must have been at least a hundred.
“How has he changed for the better?” asked Mrs. Epanchin. “I don’t see any change for the better! What’s better in him? Where did you get _that_ idea from? _What’s_ better?”
The general laughed with great satisfaction, and applied himself once more to the champagne.
So saying, Aglaya burst into bitter tears, and, hiding her face in her handkerchief, sank back into a chair.
“Why, open it, for the time being, don’t you know?” he said, most confidentially and mysteriously.
“Koulakoff... Koulakoff means nothing. This is Sokolovitch’s flat, and I am ringing at his door.... What do I care for Koulakoff?... Here comes someone to open.”
“Ho, ho! you are not nearly so simple as they try to make you out! This is not the time for it, or I would tell you a thing or two about that beauty, Gania, and his hopes. You are being undermined, pitilessly undermined, and--and it is really melancholy to see you so calm about it. But alas! it’s your nature--you can’t help it!”
“Never mind, never mind,” said the prince, signing to him to keep quiet.
“I mean to say that if I had been in Burdovsky’s place...I...”
“You don’t think me one! Oh, dear me!--that’s very clever of you; you put it so neatly, too.”
“Shall we shut the door, and lock it, or not?”

“It’s headed, ‘A Necessary Explanation,’ with the motto, ‘_Après moi le déluge!_’ Oh, deuce take it all! Surely I can never have seriously written such a silly motto as that? Look here, gentlemen, I beg to give notice that all this is very likely terrible nonsense. It is only a few ideas of mine. If you think that there is anything mysterious coming--or in a word--”

So spoke the good lady, almost angrily, as she took leave of Evgenie Pavlovitch.

There were sounds of half-smothered laughter at this.
“This baseness on her part of course aroused my young blood to fever heat; I jumped up, and away I flew.
“On the contrary, I shall sit as far from it as I can. Thanks for the hint.”
“Quick--come along!” she cried, breathless with agitation and impatience. “Come along with me this moment!”
“Of course! And it would be a disgrace to marry so, eh?”
“Come along, then. I don’t wish to meet my new year without you--my new life, I should say, for a new life is beginning for me. Did you know, Parfen, that a new life had begun for me?”
“Well, he shouldn’t steal,” cried Gania, panting with fury. And just at this moment his eye met Hippolyte’s.

“Curious enough, yes, but crude, and of course dreadful nonsense; probably the man lies in every other sentence.”

There was a moment, during this long, wretched walk back from the Petersburg Side, when the prince felt an irresistible desire to go straight to Rogojin’s, wait for him, embrace him with tears of shame and contrition, and tell him of his distrust, and finish with it--once for all.