I flung open the corridor window and a sound of running water and the first notes of some sleepy bird met me.
"And her family ?" I said.

"Who are they, and will they not mind her marrying an Englishman ?" "She has only a mother," he answered.

"I fancy that Marie has always had her own way." "Yes," I thought to myself.

"I also fancy that that is so." A sense of almost fatherly protection had developed in myself towards him.

How could he, who knew nothing at all of women, hope to manage that self-willed, eager, independent girl?
Why, why, why had she engaged herself to him?
I fancied that very possibly there were qualities in him--his very childishness and helplessness--which, if they only irritated an Englishman, would attract a Russian.