"Exactly," said Count Loris.
"I imagine, therefore," said I after a pause, "she is not one of those superficially gifted women who appear to have minds. Perhaps my description of my beloved Maria may have inclined your fancy to the same type; and, while she embodies my ideas of female excellence, I am sure she never read a book through in her life."
"Mademoiselle Olga reads, I fear; but I can easily break her of that after we are married," said Count Kourásoff gravely.
"Is she handsome?" I inquired.
"She is not ugly," was his guarded answer.
"The shallowness of women makes them easily read," said I; "although I speak with diffidence. My knowledge of them is limited: yours, doubtless, is extensive."
"Far from it," said he with energy; "the more I see of them the less I know of them."
"Then what a frightful risk!" I cried. "My friend, I would not be in your place for the wealth of the empire."
"But Mademoiselle Olga has such soft eyes and such dark eyelashes!" said he. "That comforts me when the recollection of the vagaries of her sex casts me down. After all, if we marry at all, we must marry a woman—the philosophers give us no escape from that."