"I lived for several months with Korolevitch, on his estate near Poltava. We used to talk—heavens! how we talked! Sometimes eight hours at a stretch. I learnt a great deal. Then I wandered up and down Russia, still learning."
"Writing, too?"
"The time hadn't come for writing. Korolevitch gave me no end of useful introductions. I've had great luck on my travels."
"Pray, when did you make your studies of English women?"
Piers tried to laugh; declared he did not know.
"I shouldn't wonder if you generalise from one or two?" said his hostess, letting her eyelids droop as she observed him lazily. "Do you know Russian women as well?"
By begging for another cup of tea, and adding a remark on some other subject, Piers evaded this question.
"And what are you going to do?" asked Mrs. Borisoff "Stay here, and write more articles?"
"I'm going to England in a few days for the summer."
"That's what I think I shall do. But I don't know what part to go to. Advise me, can you? Seaside—no; I don't like the seaside. Do you notice how people—our kind of people, I mean—are losing their taste for it in England? It's partly, I suppose, because of the excursion train. One doesn't grudge the crowd its excursion train, but it's so much nicer to imagine their blessedness than to see it. Or are you for the other point of view?"