"You're weakening," said Jimmie, derisively. "You're scared!"
"I am not," I declared, indignantly. "I am only trying to be polite, and it's a hard pull, I can tell you, when I want anything as much as I want to see Tolstoy. If he won't see us after he reads that letter, I can at least go away knowing that I put forth my best efforts to see him, but if I had taken a servant's refusal, I should feel myself a coward."
I looked anxiously at my friends for approval. Jimmie and the consul looked dubious, but Bee and Mrs. Jimmie patted me on the back and said I had done just right.
While we were engaged in this conversation, and while the man was still up-stairs, the door from the kitchen burst open, and in came a handsome young fellow of about eighteen, whistling. Now my brother whistles and slams doors just like this young Russian. So my understanding of boys made me feel friendly with this one at once. Seeing us, he stopped and bowed politely.
"Good morning," I said, cheerfully. "We are Americans, and we have travelled five thousand miles for the purpose of seeing Count Tolstoy, and when we got here this morning the servant wouldn't even let us in until I made him, and we are waiting to see if the count will receive us."
"Why, I am just sure papa will see you," said the boy in perfect English. "How disgusting of Dmitri. He is a blockhead, that Dmitri. I shall tell mamma how he treated you. The idea of leaving you standing down here while he took your cards up."
"It is partly our fault," I said, defending Dmitri. "We sent him up to ask."
"Nevertheless, he should have had you wait in the salon. Dmitri is a fool."
"His manner wasn't very cordial," I admitted, as we followed him up-stairs and into a large well-furnished, but rather plain, room containing no ornaments.
"But as I had a letter from the ambassador," I went on, "I felt that I must at least present it."