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If they'd told him to jump head foremost from the staircase, he

would have done it without thought or hesitation in their

service. Though Pulcheria Alexandrovna felt that the young man

was really too eccentric and pinched her hand too much, in her

anxiety over her Rodya she looked on his presence as

providential, and was unwilling to notice all his peculiarities.

But though Avdotya Romanovna shared her anxiety, and was not of

timorous disposition, she could not see the glowing light in his

eyes without wonder and almost alarm. It was only the unbounded

confidence inspired by Nastasya's account of her brother's queer

friend, which prevented her from trying to run away from him, and

to persuade her mother to do the same. She realised, too, that

even running away was perhaps impossible now.