“Excuse my keeping my greatcoat on,” said Ivan, going into the drawing-room. “I won’t sit down. I won’t stay more than a minute.”
“Sit down, Alexey Fyodorovitch,” said Katerina Ivanovna, though she remained standing. She had changed very little during this time, but there was an ominous gleam in her dark eyes. Alyosha remembered afterwards that she had struck him as particularly handsome at that moment.
“What did he ask you to tell me?”
“Only one thing,” said Alyosha, looking her straight in the face, “that you would spare yourself and say nothing at the trial of what” (he was a little confused) “… passed between you … at the time of your first acquaintance … in that town.”
“Ah! that I bowed down to the ground for that money!” She broke into a bitter laugh. “Why, is he afraid for me or for himself? He asks me to spare—whom? Him or myself? Tell me, Alexey Fyodorovitch!”
Alyosha watched her intently,