Page:The Tsar's Window.djvu/191

 "I did not mean," he said, looking at me again, "that you deliberately flirted with him. You women have a way of encouraging a man,—unconsciously, I suppose" (with a touch of bitterness). "You flatter him by smiling at him, and listening to his words as if you were reading an entertaining book; but when he is fool enough to think this means that you love him, he finds out his mistake; and the woman is considered magnanimous if she does not laugh at him for his folly. My God!" he cried, jumping up and pacing the room with a heavy step, "do you know what it is to be in love? Do you know" (stopping in front of me, and looking at me with a severity which frightened me),—"do you know what it is to be so bound up in a person that her every look, her every breath, is something dear and precious to you? That nothing which this world or the next can offer seems of any value to you, without her love?" Then, turning on his heel, and walking away from me with a contemptuous laugh: "What insufferable foolishness for me to talk to you like this! You have never fathomed the meaning of the word love."

He threw himself into the chair opposite me again.

"Count Piloff!" I exclaimed, trembling from head to foot, but resolved to stem the torrent of his vehemence, "You shall say no more till you have heard me. What I may think of you for your conduct is, doubtless, of little importance to you; but you shall know the reason I refused Mr. Thurber, and then you shall leave me" (with a feeble attempt at dignity).

"I beg your pardon," he said, more calmly; "I forgot myself."