Page:The Tsar's Window.djvu/53

 what you would ask? If she is wealthy? Yes. Young? Yes. Amiable? Yes. What else?"

George was puzzled and annoyed, as his face plainly showed. He looked indignant for an instant. "I am sure you have more earnestness in your heart than the world sees," looking at me severely. "Otherwise, you are the last person to whom I would have come in my perplexity."

There was a subtile flattery in this which mollified me in spite of myself. So I turned toward him, and said seriously, "I will tell you if I can. What do you wish to know about Judith?"

For a moment he said nothing; then, looking at me firmly, as if he meant to read my answer in my eyes, he said, "Is she especially interested in any one? I mean, is she in love?"

I gave him as careless a glance as I could command before I answered. I looked at his black hair, which is plentifully sprinkled with gray; at his high, white forehead; let my eyes wander down to his short, dark beard, parted, and brushed away from his chin; admired for a moment the clear red and brown of his skin; and wondered how he happened to have a straight nose, it was so different from his brother's. Then, as his cold blue eyes did not move from my face, I replied rather hesitatingly, "Judith has never made a confidant of me. I can tell you nothing about that."

"But you can judge somewhat. Is she a woman who, having given her word, would keep it?"

I looked at him with some surprise, I suppose, for he