Inkling, still frantic with delight, left Harold, and rushed over to her, yelping and barking, and shaking his tail violently, looking up in her face with eloquent insistency. Then he ran back to Harold, and again back to her, with fluttering agitation.
Sonia’s spirit did not falter, however, and her voice was firm and steady as she said in English:
“Why do you speak to Inkling in English, and to me in French?”
“Because Inkling and I are old friends, who have a common language, while the Princess Mannernorff is a stranger and a foreigner.”
“It seems very childish to keep up that farce.”
“I thought it was your wish.”
“And you despise me, probably, for the deception I have practised in passing myself off for the Princess Mannernorff! I did not do it deliberately,” she said, with an almost childlike air of contrition and confession. “It has hurt me all along to be deceiving Martha; but some one told her I was a Russian princess, and as my mother had been one before her marriage, and my aunt, with whom I live, is the Princess Mannernorff, I let the false impression remain, and even took advantage of it. It was wrong, I know; but I did want to hold on to Martha’s friendship a little longer. However,” she said, her face and voice hardening, “it is simply a question of time; and a few weeks sooner or later, what does it matter?”
“Why is it a question of time?” said Harold. “Why should you not keep that friendship always, if you care for it? Martha shall know nothing from me.”
There was a moment’s silence. Then Sonia said:
“I thought it possible that you might disapprove of our friendship.”