Page:The Tsar's Window.djvu/134

 "If I answered that question, I should be wandering very far from the original subject of conversation, for I should tell you something about yourself."

"Oh, pray tell it!" cried Judith. "I would like to hear it."

"Perhaps Miss Dorris would not."

"Disagreeable truths are generally useful things to hear. I am not afraid of them," said I, in an indifferent tone, leaning my head against the back of my chair and half closing my eyes.

"This is not very disagreeable," pursued Count Piloff, biting his mustache, and looking at me rather uneasily. "I was only going to say that you impress me as a young woman who wraps herself in cold indifference, and looks down from the pedestal in calm criticism upon us, poor struggling mortals. As I am a vast distance below your level, you would naturally find much to condemn and little to commend in me."

He stopped; I opened my eyes to their widest extent, and gave him one look; then tried, unsuccessfully, to resume my nonchalant manner. He met my glance coldly, with a half-smile on his face. He could have said nothing which would have made me so angry as to insinuate that I set myself up as superior to all the world. That was unmistakably his meaning, politely expressed.

Inwardly fuming, I strove to be outwardly calm as I answered, after a moment's pause, during which both of my companions looked at me expectantly, "You were right in saying it was 'not very disagreeable.' You