But if it does not work in practice,
at least the responsibility of defending it is not mine."
"Delightful!" cried Celia, smiling gayly as she put
down her cup again. "You are the only woman I've ever
known who was worth arguing with. The mere operation
makes me feel as if I were going through Oxford--or
passing the final Jesuit examinations. Heaven knows,
I would get up arguments with you every day, for the pure
enjoyment of the thing--if I weren't eternally afraid
of saying something that would hurt your feelings,
and then you wouldn't tell me, but would nurse the wound
in silence in the dark, and I should know that something
was wrong, and have to watch you for weeks to make
out what it was--and it would all be too unhappy.
But it comes back, you see, to what I said before.
You don't tell me things!"
Edith smiled in turn, affectionately enough, but with a
wistful reserve. "It is a constitutional defect--even national,
according to you. How shall I hope to change, at this
late day? But what is it you want me to tell you?--I forget."
"The Russian thing. To go to Vienna, where we get
our passports, and then to Cracow, and through to Kief,
which they say is awfully well worth while--and next
Moscow--and so on to St. Petersburg, in time to see
the ice break up. It is only in winter that you see
the characteristic Russia: that one has always heard.
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