Haldin quite sane.
"You don't know what a fine, lucid intellect mother had," continued
Nathalie Haldin, with her calm, clear-eyed simplicity, which seemed to
me always to have a quality of heroism.
"I am sure...." I murmured.
"I darkened mother's room and came out here. I've wanted for so long to
think quietly."
She paused, then, without giving any sign of distress, added, "It's so
difficult," and looked at me with a strange fixity, as if watching for a
sign of dissent or surprise.
I gave neither. I was irresistibly impelled to say--
"The visit from that gentleman has not made it any easier, I fear."
Miss Haldin stood before me with a peculiar expression in her eyes.
"I don't pretend to understand completely. Some guide one must have,
even if one does not wholly give up the direction of one's conduct to
him. I am an inexperienced girl, but I am not slavish, There has been
too much of that in Russia. Why should I not listen to him? There is no
harm in having one's thoughts directed. But I don't mind confessing
to you that I have not been completely candid with Peter Ivanovitch. I
don't quite know what prevented me at the moment...."
She walked away suddenly from me to a distant part of the room; but
it was only to open and shut a drawer in a bureau.
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