"I did not suspect
you of having them."
Etta smiled, a little wearily.
"One never knows," she answered, forcing herself to be light, "what one
may come to in old age. I saw a gray hair this morning. I am nearly
thirty-three, you know. When glamour goes, nerves come."
"Well, I suppose they do--especially in Russia, perhaps. There is a
glamour about Russia, and I mean to cultivate it rather than nerves.
There is a glamour about every thing--the broad streets, the Neva, the
snow, and the cold. Especially the people. It is always especially the
people, is it not?"
"It is the people, my dear young lady, that lend interest to the world."
"Paul took me out in a sleigh this morning," went on Maggie, in her
cheerful voice that knew no harm. "I liked every thing--the policemen in
their little boxes at the street corners, the officers in their fur
coats, the cabmen, every-body. There is something so mysterious about
them all. One can easily make up stories about every-body one meets in
Petersburg. It is so easy to think that they are not what they seem.
Paul, Etta, even you, Herr Steinmetz, may not be what you seem."
"Yes, that is so," answered Steinmetz, with a laugh.
"You may be a Nihilist," pursued Maggie. "You may have bombs concealed
up your sleeves; you may exchange mysterious passwords with people in
the streets; you may be much less innocent than you appear.
Pages:
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214