e filial relation. It is not the case
with me--if you must know the whole truth. Your hopes have to deal here
with 'a breast unwarmed by any affection,' as the poet says.... That
does not mean it is insensible," he added in a lower tone.

"I am certain your heart is not unfeeling," said Miss Haldin softly.

"No. It is not as hard as a stone," he went on in the same introspective
voice, and looking as if his heart were lying as heavy as a stone in
that unwarmed breast of which he spoke. "No, not so hard. But how to
prove what you give me credit for--ah! that's another question. No one
has ever expected such a thing from me before. No one whom my tenderness
would have been of any use to. And now you come. You! Now! No, Natalia
Victorovna. It's too late. You come too late. You must expect nothing
from me."

She recoiled from him a little, though he had made no movement, as
if she had seen some change in his face, charging his words with the
significance of some hidden sentiment they shared together. To me, the
silent spectator, they looked like two people becoming conscious of a
spell which had been lying on them ever since they first set eyes on
each other. Had either of them cast a glance then in my direction, I
would have opened the door quietly and gone out. But neither did; and
I remained, every fear of indiscretion lost in the sense of my enormous
remoteness from their captivity within the sombre horizon of Russian
problems, the boundary of their eyes, of their feelings--the prison of
their souls.

Frank, courageous, Miss Haldin controlled her voice in the midst of her
trouble.

"What can this mean?" she asked, as if speaking to herself.

"It may mean that you have given yourself up to vain imaginings while I
have managed to remain amongst the truth of things and the realities of
life--our Russian life--such as they are."

"They are cruel," she murmured.

"And ugly. Don't forget that--and ugly. Look where you like. Look near
you, here abroad where you are, and then look back at home, whence you
came."

"One must look beyond the present." Her tone had an ardent conviction.

"The blind can do that best. I have had the misfortune to be born
clear-eyed. And if you only knew what strange things I have seen! What
amazing and unexpected apparitions!... But why talk of all this?"

"On the contrary, I want to talk of all this with you," she protested
with earnest serenity. The sombre humours of her brother's frie