“Oh, it was, it was: most awfully good. The Avenue Louise, mamma, on a May morning with Captain Pierre Lacroix by my side—oh, that was heaven! Yes, Brussels was heaven, and I lived there among the male angels—I mean the deliciously wicked men—for one very short year. But if Brussels was heaven, Hortiach is hell, and I really do believe father is the devil himself.”
Her mother smiled reluctantly.
“Katya, dear, you musn’t talk like that. At all events, only when we’re alone.”
It was Katya’s turn to smile, and in the middle of her sweet smile she broke out, impulsively:
“Father is a dear, really, you know; but he is so awfully blind and dull and stupid. Fancy thinking Salonika is too wicked for me to live in! Why, if he only knew the things I did....”
She paused and her eyes grew naughty with reminiscences.
“Yes, Katya?” her mother whispered, invitingly.
“Oh nothing. I say ‘nothing,’ but I mean everything.”
“Everything?”
“Well, not quite everything. Yet I sometimes wish I had gone what my English friends used to call 'the whole hog.’ All the way, you know.”