Page:The Tsar's Window.djvu/272

 All eyes were upon me by this time, and I endeavored to laugh as I said that I was well enough.

"Only," I added, "these Polish beds are peculiar, and probably I did not sleep as well as you did."

Tom forgot me for an instant, as his thoughts turned to his favorite grievance.

"I hardly slept a wink last night," he insisted.

"You do look ill, Dorris," interrupted Grace. "I advise you to stay in the house and rest."

Staying in, I feared, meant a tête-à-tête with Chilton Thurber, which I did not feel strong enough to undergo, so I insisted upon accompanying Tom. He apparently expected to meet some of the descendants of that Thaddeus about whom he used to read, and as his expectations were not realized, he pronounced Warsaw a failure.

"Certainly, the glory has departed from Poland," Mr. Thurber remarked, as we passed some of the forts, which were manned by Russian soldiers. "Even the old palace of the kings is inhabited by the Russian governor-general."

We went into some shops. They pretended not to understand Mr. Thurber's Russian, although that is the language in which everything is taught in the schools, instruction being given in Polish as a foreign tongue.

The town is shabby. We wondered what part of it was inhabited by the élite.

"The Polish aristocracy," Mr. Thurber informed us, "has disappeared. No one knows exactly what has become of the old families. Many of them have