"Why, because--because he is so sneering. I do not like Alexey Iványtch;
I even dislike him. Yet, all the same, I should not have liked him to
dislike me; it would have made me very uneasy."

"And what do you think, Marya Ivánofna, does he dislike you or no?"

Marya Ivánofna looked disturbed, and grew very red.

"I think," she said, at last, "I think he likes me."

"Why?"

"Because he proposed to me."

"Proposed to you! When?"

"Last year, two months before you came."

"And you did not consent?"

"As you see, Alexey Iványtch is a man of wit, and of good family, to be
sure, well off, too; but only to think of being obliged to kiss him
before everybody under the marriage crown! No, no; nothing in the world
would induce me."

The words of Marya Ivánofna enlightened me, and made many things clear
to me. I understood now why Chvabrine so persistently followed her up.
He had probably observed our mutual attraction, and was trying to detach
us one from another.