Maslova continued to look at the president in silence, and blushing.
"Tell us how it happened."
"How it happened?" Maslova suddenly began, speaking quickly. "I came to the lodging-house, and was shown into the room. He was there, already very drunk." She pronounced the word HE with a look of horror in her wide-open eyes. "I wished to go away, but he would not let me." She stopped, as if having lost the thread, or remembered some thing else.
"Well, and then?"
"Well, what then? I remained a bit, and went home again."
At this moment the public prosecutor raised himself a little, leaning on one elbow in an awkward manner.
"You would like to put a question?" said the president, and having received an answer in the affirmative, he made a gesture inviting the public prosecutor to speak.
"I want to ask, was the prisoner previously acquainted with Simeon Kartinkin?" said the public prosecutor, without looking at Maslova, and, having put the question, he compressed his lips and frowned.
The president repeated the question. Maslova stared at the public prosecutor, with a frightened look.
"With Simeon? Yes," she said.
"I should like to know what the prisoner's acquaintance with Kartinkin consisted in. Did they meet often?"
"Consisted in? . . .
"He invited me for the lodgers; it was not an acquaintance at all," answered Maslova, anxiously moving her eyes from the president to the public prosecutor and back to the president.
"I should like to know why Kartinkin invited only Maslova, and none of the other girls, for the lodgers?" said the public prosecutor, with half-closed eyes and a cunning, Mephistophelian smile.
"I don't know. How should I know?" said Maslova, casting a frightened look round, and fixing her eyes for a moment on Nekhludoff. "He asked whom he liked."