"'I understand' would have sufficed." He draws a hand to his forehead, cringing. "Why do you keep telling me that it's 'my business' like I'm divulging something sordid?" His face feels hot, not out of shame over anything to do with Stavrogin, but because he is realizing now that he was right. Walter really does think he is some kind of disgusting pervert, like all these Barge people.

How dare he! His jaw clenches, and he shoots him an angry look.

"I see now this conversation was needed indeed, embarrassing as it is for the both of us. But no, Walter. Stavrogin isn't and never will be my husband. He's not my 'boyfriend.' We aren't and never were 'dating.'" He laughs cynically. "He was my friend. My comrade. An aristocrat with connections, who helped me get back into Russia so that we could start a revolution together. Lizaveta was his fiancee, and if things were different, yes, I too would like to marry a girl and live a normal life, believe it or not. I just never met the right one. I don't know many girls, and I'm not exactly popular with the ladies. Being a bloody pauper because my idiot of a father spent the inheritance left to me by my mother doesn't help."

He isn't ashamed of his relationship with Stavrogin, but Walter need not worry that he would share 'his business.' These things aren't talked about where he's from, at all, and this conversation has cemented that they shouldn't be.

"I admit, I hoped that Lucy might... but no." He sighs. "I've irritated her, and I suspect that freckled green girl is more her type anyway."