“You are both blondes and a blonde is never so homely as when she is cold,” she added sententiously, “for her face is much more apt to get blue than red, except the end of her nose.”
Mildred had purchased a lovely fur hat to match her sable coat. And in spite of her poverty Nona had been unable to resist a set of black fox. Furs were so much cheaper in Russia than in the United States that it really almost seemed one’s duty to buy them.
When General Alexis’ sleigh arrived, Barbara would not even go downstairs to see the others start. But she managed by pressing her nose against the window to observe that the arrangements for the drive were satisfactory.
The sleigh was a beautiful one, built of mahogany, and the pair of horses wore real silver mountings on their harness.
A driver, in the Imperial livery, sat upon the front seat with a man beside him, who acted as a private guard for General Alexis, although he wore citizen’s clothes. There was far less danger of anarchy in Russia during war times; nevertheless, men in public positions in Russia were always watchful of trouble from fanatics.
Therefore, General Alexis and Mildred were together in the middle seat, while Nona and Lieutenant Orlaff occupied the one back of them.
Then the sleigh started off so quickly that it had disappeared before Barbara realized it. Afterwards, with feminine inconsistency, she turned back into their small sitting room, frowning and sighing.
“I do wish I had gone along, after all. There wasn’t any place for me, except to sit either between Mildred and General Alexis, or Nona and her Russian lieutenant. Then nobody would have had a good time. Still, perhaps I should have stuck close to Mildred; she is almost my sister. And though Mrs. Thornton might be pleased, Judge Thornton and Dick would be wretched. Russia is so far away and so cold.”
Then Barbara made no further explanation, even to herself, of her enigmatic state of mind, but fell to writing letters as she had planned. Some thought she devoted to what she should write Dick about his sister’s friend, the distinguished Russian general. But whatever she planned sounded either too pointed or else had no point at all. So she merely closed her letter by explaining that the others had gone for a ride and that General Alexis appeared extremely grateful to Mildred for her care of him in his illness. She also mentioned that she personally liked the distinguished soldier very much and that he was not nearly so foreign as one might expect.
This was not a sensible statement, for General Alexis could scarcely have been more of a Russian than he was. A foreigner, of course, simply is an individual who belongs to another country than one’s own. Presumably an American is equally a foreigner to a European. What Barbara actually meant was that General Alexis was not unlike the men to whom she had been accustomed in the United States. He had the courtesy and quiet dignity of the most distinguished of her own countrymen. There was nothing particularly oriental about him or his attitude to women. The truth is that Barbara did not appreciate the fact that General Alexis was too cosmopolitan to show many of the peculiarities of his race. He had seen too much of the world and studied and thought too deeply. Besides, he was a man of real gentleness and simplicity.