"I left Ottawa for love of you, just as four years before I came to Ottawa for love of another." "You have had adventures," remarked Storri sarcastically.

"I have never heard your story, my San Reve; go on, I beseech you!" "I will tell you one thing," said the San Reve, "from which you may wring a warning.

My father was a showman--a tamer of lions and leopards.
When I was twelve, I went into the den with him to hold a hoop while he lashed those big cats through it.

Yes, Storri," cried the San Reve, a sudden flame to burst forth in her voice like an oral brightness, and as apparent as a fire in a forest, "when to fear was to die, I have held aloft my little hoop to the lions and the leopards! And for all their snarls they jumped tamely; for all their threats they did nothing.

I, as a child, was not afraid of a lion under the lash; am I now to fear a bear, a Russian bear, I, who am a woman ?" "Why, my San Reve," protested Storri, "and what has stirred your anger ?" Storri was startled by the San Reve's fury rather than her revelations.
Having a politic mind to soothe her, he sought to take her hand.
"Keep your attentions to yourself!" cried the San Reve; "I am in no temper for tenderness." "Ah, as to that," said Storri, turning proud, "I, who am a Russian gentleman, yes, a Russian nobleman, shall not offend.