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She could not help respecting him, but nant pleasure, made him feel that he too was at her mercy 'I'm a flirt, I'm heartless, I'm an actress in my instincts,' she said to hiood! Give me your hand then; I'll stick this pin in it, you'll be asha it, it will hurt you, but you'll laugh for all that, you truthful person' Lushin cri his hand She pricked it, and he did in fact begin to laugh, and she laughed, thrusting the pin in pretty deeply, and peeping into his eyes, which he vainly strove to keep in other directions

I understood least of all the relations existing between Zinaïda and Count Malevsky He was handso false in him was apparent even to me, a boy of sixteen, and I marvelled that Zinaïda did not notice it But possibly she did notice this eleular education, strange acquaintances and habits, the constant presence of her , froirl enjoyed, with the consciousness of her superiority to the people around her, had developed in her a sort of half-contemptuous carelessness and lack of fastidiousness At any tiht announce that there was no sugar, or souests would fall to quarrelling a themselves--she would only shake her curls, and say, 'What does it h about it

But nation when Malevsky approached her, with a sly, fox-like action, leaned gracefully on the back of her chair, and began whispering in her ear with a self-satisfied and ingratiating little smile, while she folded her arms across her bosom, looked intently at him and smiled too, and shook her head

'What induces you to receive Count Malevsky?' I asked her one day

'He has such pretty moustaches,' she answered 'But that's rather beyond you'

'You needn't think I care for him,' she said to me another time 'No; I can't care for people I have to look down upon I must have some one who can master me But, merciful heavens, I hope I may never coht in any one's claws, not for anything'