"How shall we do it the sooner?
Wait!
I'll either send it to you today with Kolya, if he comes, or bring it over myself tomorrow, when the prince and I go for a walk again," she finally concluded her perplexity, happy to have succeeded in resolving the problem so adroitly and conveniently for everyone.
Finally, on the point of taking his leave, Prince Shch. seemed suddenly to remember:
"Ah, yes," he asked, "might you at least know, dear Lev Nikolaevich, who that person was who shouted to Evgeny Pavlych from her carriage yesterday?"
"It was Nastasya Filippovna," said the prince, "haven't you learned yet that it was she?
But I don't know who was with her."
"I know, I've heard!" Prince Shch. picked up.
"But what did the shout mean? I confess, it's such a riddle ... for me and others."
Prince Shch. spoke with extraordinary and obvious amazement.
"She spoke about some promissory notes of Evgeny Pavlych's," the prince replied very simply, "which came to Rogozhin from some moneylender, at her request, and for which Rogozhin will allow Evgeny Pavlych to wait."
"I heard, I heard, my dear Prince, but that simply cannot be!
Evgeny Pavlych could not have any promissory notes here.
With his fortune . . . True, there were occasions before, owing to his flightiness, and I even used to help him out . . . But with his fortune, to give promissory notes to a moneylender and then worry about them is impossible.
And he can't be on such friendly and familiar terms with Nastasya Filippovna—that's the chief puzzle.
He swears he doesn't understand anything, and I fully believe him.
But the thing is, dear Prince, that I wanted to ask you: do you know anything?
That is, has any rumor reached you by some miracle?"
"No, I don't know anything, and I assure you that I took no part in it."
"Ah, Prince, what's become of you!
I simply wouldn't know you today.
How could I suppose that you took part in such an affair? . . .
Well, you're upset today."
He embraced and kissed him.
"That is, took part in what 'such' an affair?
I don't see any 'such' an affair."
"Undoubtedly this person wished somehow to hinder Evgeny Pavlych in something, endowing him, in the eyes of witnesses, with qualities he does not and could not have," Prince Shch. replied rather drily.
Prince Lev Nikolaevich was embarrassed, but nevertheless went on looking intently and inquiringly at the prince: but the latter fell silent.
"And not simply promissory notes?
Not literally as it happened yesterday?" the prince finally murmured in some impatience.
"But I'm telling you, judge for yourself, what can there be in common between Evgeny Pavlych and . . . her, and with Rogozhin on top of it?
I repeat to you, his fortune is enormous, that I know perfectly well; there's another fortune expected from his uncle.
Nastasya Filippovna simply ..."
Prince Shch. suddenly fell silent, evidently because he did not want to go on telling the prince about Nastasya Filippovna.
"It means, in any case, that he's acquainted with her?" Prince Lev Nikolaevich suddenly asked, after a moment's silence.
"It seems so—a flighty fellow!
However, if so, it was very long ago, still before, that is, two or three years ago.
He used to know Totsky, too.
But now there could be nothing of the sort, and they could never be on familiar terms!
You know yourself that she hasn't been here; she hasn't been anywhere here.
Many people don't know that she's appeared again.
I noticed her carriage only three days ago, no more."
"A magnificent carriage!" said Adelaida.
"Yes, the carriage is magnificent."
They both went away, however, in the most friendly, the most, one might say, brotherly disposition towards Prince Lev Nikolaevich.
But for our hero this visit contained in itself something even capital.
We may assume that he himself had suspected a great deal since the previous night (and perhaps even earlier), but till their visit he had not dared to think his apprehensions fully borne out.
Now, though, it was becoming clear: Prince Shch. had, of course, interpreted the event wrongly, but still he had wandered around the truth, he had understood that this was an intrigue. ("Incidentally, he may understand it quite correctly in himself," thought the prince, "only he doesn't want to say it and therefore deliberately interprets it wrongly.") The clearest thing of all was that people were now visiting him (namely, Prince Shch.) in hopes of some explanation; and if so, then they thought he was a direct participant in the intrigue.
Besides that, if it was all indeed so important, then it meant that she had some terrible goal, but what was this goal?
Terrible!