from you? Now, tell me simply, tell me every word of the message he sent you with (I knew he would send you).”
“He told me to give you his compliments—and to say that he would never come again—but to give you his compliments.”
“His compliments? Was that what he said—his own expression?”
“Yes.”
“Accidentally perhaps he made a mistake in the word, perhaps he did not use the right word?”
“No; he told me precisely to repeat that word. He begged me two or three times not to forget to say so.”
Katerina Ivanovna flushed hotly.
“Help me now, Alexey Fyodorovitch. Now I really need your help. I’ll tell you what I think, and you must simply say whether it’s right or not. Listen! If he had sent me his compliments in passing, without insisting on your repeating the words, without emphasizing them, that would be the end of everything! But if he particularly insisted on