Page 396 - the-idiot

warmth.
‘That seems to me all the more reason for sparing her,’
said the prince timidly.
‘Prince, you are not only simple, but your simplicity is
almost past the limit,’ said Lebedeff’s nephew, with a sar-
castic smile.
‘But what right had you?’ said Hippolyte in a very strange
tone.
‘None—none whatever,’ agreed the prince hastily. ‘I admit
you are right there, but it was involuntary, and I immediate-
ly said to myself that my personal feelings had nothing to do
with it,— that if I thought it right to satisfy the demands of
Mr. Burdovsky, out of respect for the memory of Pavlicheff,
I ought to do so in any case, whether I esteemed Mr. Bur-
dovsky or not. I only mentioned this, gentlemen, because it
seemed so unnatural to me for a son to betray his mother’s
secret in such a way. In short, that is what convinced me
that Tchebaroff must be a rogue, and that he had induced
Mr. Burdovsky to attempt this fraud.’
‘But this is intolerable!’ cried the visitors, some of them
starting to their feet.
‘Gentlemen, I supposed from this that poor Mr. Burdo-
vsky must be a simple-minded man, quite defenceless, and
an easy tool in the hands of rogues. That is why I thought it
my duty to try and help him as ‘Pavlicheff’s son’; in the first
place by rescuing him from the influence of Tchebaroff, and
secondly by making myself his friend. I have resolved to
give him ten thousand roubles; that is about the sum which
I calculate that Pavlicheff must have spent on me.’