Then all at once she burst out laughing, and laughed for a long while. With astonishment and a feeling of offence I gazed at her. Her laughter was too like the derisive merriment which she had so often indulged in of late⁠—merriment which had broken forth always at the time of my most passionate explanations. At length she ceased, and frowned at me from under her eyebrows.

“I am not going to take your money,” she said contemptuously.

“Why not?” I cried. “Why not, Polina?”

“Because I am not in the habit of receiving money for nothing.”

“But I am offering it to you as a friend . In the same way I would offer you my very life.”

Upon this she threw me a long, questioning glance, as though she were seeking to probe me to the depths.