"Unaccountable--no," replied Steinmetz. "But then I am a German--and stout, which may make a difference. I have no nerves."

He looked into the fire through his benevolent gold-rimmed spectacles.

"Is it nerves--or is it Petersburg?" she asked abruptly. "I think it is Petersburg. I hate Petersburg."

"Why Petersburg more than Moscow or Nijni or--Tver?"

She drew in a long, slow breath, looking him up and down the while from the corners of her eyes.

"I do not know," she replied collectedly; "I think it is damp. These houses are built on reclaimed land, I believe. This was all marsh, was it not?"

He did not answer her question, and somehow she seemed to expect no reply. He stood blinking down into the fire while she watched him furtively from the corners of her eyes, her lips parched and open, her face quite white.

A few moments before she had protested that she desired his friendship.

She knew now that she could not brave his enmity. And the one word "Tver" had done it all! The mere mention of a town, obscure and squalid, on the upper waters of the mighty Volga in Mid-Russia!

During those few moments she suddenly came face to face with her position. What had she to offer this man? She looked him up and down--stout, placid, and impenetrable. Here was no common adventurer seeking place--no coxcomb seeking ladies' favors--no pauper to be bought with gold. She had no means of ascertaining how much he knew, how much he suspected. She had to deal with a man who held the best cards and would not play them. She could never hope to find out whether his knowledge and his suspicions were his alone or had been imparted to others. In her walk through life she had jostled mostly villains; and a villain is no very dangerous foe, for he fights on slippery ground.

Except Paul she had never had to do with a man who was quite honest, upright, and fearless; and she had fallen into the common error of thinking that all such are necessarily simple, unsuspicious, and a little stupid.

She breathed hard, living through years of anxiety in a few moments of time, and she could only realize that she was helpless, bound hand and foot in this man's power.

It was he who spoke first. In the smaller crises of life it is usually the woman who takes this privilege upon herself; but the larger situations need a man's steadier grasp.

"My dear lady," he said, "if you are content to take my friendship as it is, it is yours. But I warn you it is no showy drawing-room article.

There will be no compliments, no pretty speeches, no little gifts of flowers, and such trumpery amenities. It will all be very solid and middle-aged, like myself."

"You think," returned the lady, "that I am fit for nothing better than pretty speeches and compliments and floral offerings?"

She broke off with a forced little laugh, and awaited his verdict with defiant eyes upraised. He returned the gaze through his placid spectacles; her beauty, in its setting of brilliant dress and furniture, soft lights, flowers, and a thousand feminine surroundings, failed to dazzle him.

"I do," he said quietly.

"And yet you offer me your friendship?"

He bowed in acquiescence.

"Why?" she asked.

"For Paul's sake, my dear lady."

She shrugged her shoulders and turned away from him.

"Of course," she said, "it is quite easy to be rude. As it happens, it is precisely for Paul's sake that I took the trouble of speaking to you on this matter. I do not wish him to be troubled with such small domestic affairs; and therefore, if we are to live under the same roof, I shall deem it a favor if you will, at all events, conceal your disapproval of me."

He bowed gravely and kept silence. Etta sat with a little patch of color on either cheek, looking into the fire until the door was opened and Maggie came in.

Steinmetz went toward her with his grave smile, while Etta hid a face which had grown haggard.

Maggie glanced from one to the other with frank interest. The relationship between these two had rather puzzled her of late.

"Well," said Steinmetz, "and what of St. Petersburg?"

"I am not disappointed," replied Maggie. "It is all I expected and more.

I am not blasee like Etta. Every thing interests me."

"We were discussing Petersburg when you came in," said Steinmetz, drawing forward a chair. "The princess does not like it. She complains of--nerves."

"Nerves!" exclaimed Maggie, turning to her cousin. "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."

"All that may be so," he admitted.

"You may have a revolver in the pocket of your dress-coat," went on Maggie, pointing to the voluminous garment with her fan.

His hand went to the pocket in question, and produced exactly what she had suggested. He held out his hand with a small silver-mounted revolver lying in the palm of it.

"Even that," he said, "may be so."

Maggie looked at it with a sudden curiosity, her bright eyes grave.

"Loaded?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Then I will not examine it. How curious! I wonder how near to the mark I may have been in other ways."

"I wonder," said Steinmetz, looking at Etta. "And now tell us something about the princess. What do you suspect her of?"

At this moment Paul came into the room, distinguished-looking and grave.

"Miss Delafield," pursued Steinmetz, turning to the new-comer, "is telling us her suspicions about ourselves. I am already as good as condemned to Siberia. She is now about to sit in judgment on the princess."

Maggie laughed.