I stood looking out of one of the great windows in the Hall of St. George. As I turned away from it, my eyes fell upon George, who was staring absently at an inscription on the wall. There was such an expression of misery on his face that my heart smote me. I stood still in the window.
"Count Piloff," said I graciously, "will you be kind enough to come and tell me what I am looking at out of the window?"
He glared at me, as though he were half-inclined to refuse, but came forward reluctantly, until we were side by side in the window embrasure. Then I spoke:—
"You act so strangely to-day. Perhaps I have been disagreeable; but I am amiable now, and I want you to be pleasant."
He looked as if he did not understand my words, and I waited some time for his reply. It was spoken at last, low and hurriedly, with eyes resolutely fixed on the many-colored roofs below us.
"I know you would prefer to see me always gay and smiling,—ready to talk when you wish it; equally ready to listen when you wish to talk; willing to have you treat me one day as if you had a really friendly feeling for me, and the next day spurn me with contempt; always happy, never wretched and miserable, even though you have done all in your power to make me so. You would prefer to have me like that; but I am finding out every day that you are disappointed in me; and I can assure you that you expect more than any man who is merely mortal can give!"
