Page:The Tsar's Window.djvu/216

 cheek) "I think if I stay long enough we may become very good friends."

He did not reply, and still kept his face turned away; so, after a brief pause, I continued, "Real friends, you know, such as Tom and I are."

With a movement which was so sudden that it made me jump, he started up, looked at me with an ugly frown, and muttered in a voice of suppressed rage,—

"I will not be your friend!"

Biting his mustache savagely, he surveyed my small figure, while I shrank as far back into the corner of the causeuse as possible.

"I will either be," he went on presently, "all or nothing. Friend!" with a contemptuous laugh, darting another fierce glance at me. "I would rather you would hate me than to be my friend! What satisfaction would the sort of friendship which you give Tom be to me?"

Another short, bitter laugh finished this speech, and he turned impatiently away from me.

By this time my natural spirit, which had been somewhat dashed by his reception of what was meant to be an extremely conciliatory remark, asserted itself, and I spoke up promptly, with a flaming face,—

"Very well. Of course I can hate you if you prefer it, and I shall find it easy to do so if you repeat this often. You have talked so much about my having more confidence in you, and have made so many sarcastic remarks about my dislike for you, that I naturally supposed you wished to change it all. If I am