Page:The Tsar's Window.djvu/82

 Such little caressing ways come quite naturally to Judith. I always feel supremely foolish when I call a person "dear"; but in her it is charming. I felt my stern resolution melting, but I determined to speak before it was too late. "Judith," I said, in a mournful tone, "do you believe that George Piloff is a good man?"

She gave a slight start, and the cheek which had been resting on my hand was suddenly removed as she sat upright. "Good!" she repeated musingly. "Perhaps I should not use that word in speaking of him; but surely not bad, Dorris?" looking at me anxiously, with a question in her soft eyes. "Surely not bad, dear?"

I went on firmly: "I believe that he is a bad man."

"Why?"

I was staggered for a moment. "Perhaps he is not really bad," feebly, "but he is at the club continually, and every one says that all those young men at the club gamble."

"You mean Mr. Thurber, not every one," corrected my cousin quietly.

She was suspiciously calm. I began to warm with my subject. "He is not the kind of man for you to marry. O Judith, don't fall in love with a foreigner! Please, please don't! Even the very best of them—even Nicolas—cannot understand how women are treated in our country; and we expect so much more than they can give,—than they know how to give."

My cousin's head was averted, but her hand still rested on my lap. She said, in a voice which had the shadow of laughter in it, "You forget that George lived