"You're a queer girl, Tamara. Here I'm looking at you and
wondering. Well, now, I can understand how these fools, on the
manner of Sonka, play at love. That's what they're fools for. But
you, it seems, have been roasted on all sorts of embers, have been
washed in all sorts of lye, and yet you allow yourself foolishness
of that sort. What are you embroidering that shirt for?"

Tamara, without haste, with a pin refastens the fabric more
conveniently on her knee, smooths the seam down with the thimble,
and speaks, without raising the narrowed eyes, her head bent just
a trifle to one side:

"One's got to be doing something. It's wearisome just so. I don't
play at cards, and I don't like them."

Jennie continues to shake her head.

"No, you're a queer girl, really you are. You always have more
from the guests than all of us get. You fool, instead of saving
money, what do you spend it on? You buy perfumes at seven roubles
the bottle. Who needs it? And now you have bought fifteen roubles'
worth of silk. Isn't this for your Senka, now?"

"Of course, for Sennechka."

"What a treasure you've found, to be sure! A miserable thief. He
rides up to this establishment like some general. How is it he
doesn't beat you yet? The thieves--they like that. And he plucks
you, have no fear?"