Page:The Tsar's Window.djvu/51

 I asked myself mentally if Sacha could possibly refer to me, but he soon undeceived me.

"Do you think she could ever care for me?" with a painfully anxious gaze.

"I don't know," I answered, rather stupidly. "Why don't you ask her?"

"I have so little to offer her," he said. "If she gave me a ray of hope, I could exist on that; but I fear to ask her, she is so beautiful and so much sought after," turning his eyes on George Piloff, a younger brother of Nicolas, who was hovering about Judith.

Now, indeed, light broke upon my bewildered brain, and I ceased to regard my young friend as a candidate for a lunatic asylum. He meant Judith, of course. George being one of my aversions, I shook my head, with an incredulous smile, and said, "I assure you there is not the slightest danger of your having Count Piloff as a rival."

"Do you think so?"

"I am sure of it."

"I wonder if I might tell you a secret?"

"Of course," I exclaimed. "I am the safest person in the world to tell a secret to." (I wonder if every one has this same idea about themselves.)

Sacha reflected for a moment, and then said mournfully, "I am afraid it would not do to tell you. But you are sure that your cousin does not care for him?" nodding towards George.

"I am sure of nothing," I answered tartly, determined not to ask him for his secret, but equally determined to