I drew myself up haughtily; I was angry.
“If you intend any inference derogatory to Mademoiselle Zénaïde—” I began.
“No—no!” she cried hastily, almost tearfully. “What a traitor you must think me! Zénaïde is the dearest girl in the world; the sweetest I ever knew, save one, and that was your own dead sister, Philippe. But these Russians!” she looked over her shoulder as if she saw a ghost, “they would kill you, dear boy!”
I laughed under my breath; but still I remembered where I stood, and the murdered Feodor.
“I will risk it, Mademoiselle Eudoxie,” I said lightly. “I would risk it gladly to win Zénaïde Feodorovna!”
“Alas!” exclaimed the old maid, tearfully. “I feared it—I feared it! You were ever so, Monsieur Philippe: quick as a flash, and hot-headed. No good can come of it!”
“Nonsense, mademoiselle!” I cried almost gayly; “I have not touched her heart yet. Go back, or some one will find us here whispering, and then, indeed, there will be a bloody catastrophe.”
Remembering that prudence is the better part of valor, she retreated, but shaking her head in melancholy foreboding, the last words that I heard being—
“Poor Zénaïde!—poor Philippe!”
And the conjunction of names, instead of pointing mademoiselle’s warning, thrilled me with an absurd happiness.