She looked up at him, and then for some moments kept silence while she idly opened and shut her fan. There was in the immediate vicinity of Karl Steinmetz a sort of atmosphere of sympathy which had the effect of compelling confidence. Even Etta was affected by it. During the silence recorded she was quelling a sudden desire to say things to this man which she had never said to any. She only succeeded in part.
“Do you ever feel an unaccountable sensation of dread,” she asked, with a weary little laugh; “a sort of foreboding with nothing definite to forebode?”
“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!