"The world," she went on rather hurriedly, "never makes allowances--does
it? He was easily led, I suppose. And people said things of him that
were not true. Did you ever hear of him in Russia--of the things they
said of him?"

She waited for the answer with suppressed eagerness--a good woman
defending the memory of her dead husband--a fair lioness protecting her
cub.

"No; I never hear Russian gossip. I know no one in St. Petersburg, and
few in Moscow."

She gave a little sigh of relief.

"Then perhaps poor Sydney's delinquencies have been forgotten," she
said. "In six months every thing is forgotten now. He has only been dead
six months, you know. He died in Russia."

All the while she was watching his face. She had moved in a circle where
everything is known--where men have faces of iron and nerves of steel to
conceal what they know. She could hardly believe that Paul Alexis knew
so little as he pretended.

"So I heard a month ago," he said.

In a flash of thought Etta remembered that it was only within the last
four weeks that this admirer had betrayed his admiration. Could this be
that phenomenon of the three-volume novel, an honorable man? She looked
at him with curiosity--without, it is to be feared, much respect.