“Why will you so speak? What else has a girl of my great nation to think of and talk of? And the mademoiselles here—what have they to think of and to talk of? Oh! it is all the same; we live for it—our dot, and our future husbands, and the home where he is lord and we his humble servant.”
“It doesn’t sound at all interesting,” I said; and after that my conversation with Comtesse Riki languished a little.
A few days afterwards this same girl came to me when I was preparing a letter for home. I was writing in our sitting-room when she entered. She glanced quickly round her.
“It is you who have the sympathy,” she said.
“I hope so,” I answered. “What is the matter, Riki?” Her eyes were full of tears; she hastily put up her handkerchief and wiped them away.
“There is no doubt,” she said, “that you English are allowed liberties unheard-of for a German girl like me. I would beg of you to do me a great favour. I have been thinking of what you said the other day about this so great liberty of the English maidens, and the great extension of years which to them is permitted.”
“Yes, yes?” I said, and as I spoke I glanced at the gilt clock on the chiffonier.
“You are in so great a hurry, are you not?” asked Riki.
“I want to finish my letter.”
“And you will perhaps post it; is it not so?”