might be two-and-twenty), though, indeed, with a little forced laugh, it
was scarcely flattering to hear one had altered out of all recognition.
Then, without allowing me time to reply, she plunged into a general topic
of conversation which, as I should have been obtuse indeed not to take the
hint, I did my best to keep up.

"But while she talked of Vienna and Warsaw, of her distant neighbors, and
last year's visitors, it was evident that her mind was elsewhere; her eye
wandered, she lost the thread of her discourse, answered me at random, and
smiled her piteous smile incongruously.

"However lonely she might be in her solitary splendor, the company of a
countryman was evidently no such welcome diversion.

"After a little while she seemed to feel herself that she was lacking in
cordiality, and, bringing her absent gaze to bear upon me with a puzzled
strained look: 'I fear you will find it very dull,' she said, 'my husband
is so wrapped up this winter in his country life and his sport. You are
the first visitor we have had. There is nothing but guns and horses here,
and you do not care for these things.'

"The door creaked behind us; and the baron entered, in faultless evening
dress. Before she turned toward him I was sharp enough to catch again the
upleaping of a quick dread in her eyes, not even so much dread perhaps, I
thought afterwards, as horror--the horror we notice in some animals at the
nearing of a beast of prey. It was gone in a second, and she was smiling.
But it was a revelation.

"Perhaps he beat her in Russian fashion, and she, as an Englishwoman, was
narrow-minded enough to resent this; or perhaps, merely, I had the