We had journeyed that morning in a party to view the Italian Glass-house at Greenwich, and dining at a hostelry in the neighbourhood, had returned by water. We disembarked at Westminster steps, and I induced the company to favour me with their presence and drink a dish of bohea in my apartment.
Now the sitting-rooms which I occupied were two in number and opened upon each other, the first, which was the larger, lying along the front of the house, and the second, an inner chamber, giving upon a little garden at the back. Ilga, I noticed, wandered from one room to the other, examining my possessions with an indefatigable curiosity. For, said she:
"It is only by such means that one discovers the true nature of one's friends. Conversation is but the pretty scabbard that hides the sword. The blade may be lath for all that we can tell."
"You distrust your friends so much?"
"Have I no reason to?" she exclaimed, suddenly bending her eyes upon me, and she paused in expectation of an answer. "But I forgot; you know nothing of my history."
I turned away, for I felt the blood rushing to my face.
"I would fain hear you tell it me," I managed to stammer out.
"Some time I will," she replied quietly, "but not to-day; the time is inopportune. For it is brimful of sorrow, and the telling of it will, I trust, sadden you."
The strangeness of the words, and a passionate tension in her voice, filled me with uneasiness, and I wheeled sharply round.
"For I take you for my friend," she explained softly, "and so count on your sympathy. Yet, after all, can I count on it?"