Page:The Tsar's Window.djvu/189

 "Why should you be so excited over a small matter?"

He had shown no excitement, but I hoped to irritate him by the question. My expectations were not realized.

"It certainly should be a small matter to me whether you accept a certain suitor or not," he answered in the same calm voice; "but when that suitor is my friend, and when your conduct has led him as well as me to suppose that you did not regard him with indifference, it becomes another thing; and if I imagine that by putting the case clearly before you, and combatting any false ideas which may have crept into your mind, I can cause you to reconsider your decision, I am justified in using plain language."

Here was another thunderbolt! I had led Mr. Thurber to think I was in love with him! The darkness had settled down upon us; but the fire-light cast queer, flickering shadows into the corners.

"If," he continued, after a pause, "you have any lingering doubts of Thurber's fondness for you, I can lay them at rest. I know that ever since you came to Petersburg, he has been in love with you. All his friends have noticed the change in him. If you could have seen the state he was in after he left you this morning,"—he broke off suddenly.

"I begin to think," he went on presently, with an uneasy laugh, "that I have come on a Quixotic errand. I started on the impulse of the moment, thinking I could help matters; but I see that my efforts are unwelcome, and my friendly spirit meets with no response."