“Katie, I’ve something I must tell you,” he said. He felt her body move under his arm, but she only said, very quietly: “Yes, Phil?” Then in the little fragment of silence that followed she said, very cosily and securely: “So long as it isn’t to tell me that you don’t love me any more, I don’t mind what it is?” “No—it isn’t that. It’s something I should have told you, I suppose, long ago. I would have told you, only it was all so over and done with for me that I couldn’t imagine its mattering to anyone. I told your father that there was no complication in my life, and that’s true—there is none. There’s nothing I have nor think nor do that isn’t yours.” She said very quietly: “You were in love with someone before you knew me?” He was surprised and immensely reassured by the quietness and tranquillity of her voice. “That’s it—That’s it,” he said, eagerly, his heart bounding with relief and happiness. “Look here, Katie. I must tell you everything—_everything_, so that there can’t be anything between us any more that you don’t know. You see, when I went to Russia first I was very young—very young for my age too. Russia isn’t much of a place when you don’t know the language and the weather’s bad—and I’d gone expecting too much. I’d heard so much about Russia’s hospitality and kindness, but I was with English people at first, and most of them were tired to death of Russia, and only saw its worst side and didn’t paint it very cheerfully. Then the Russians I did meet had to struggle along in bad French or English (it’s all rot about Russians being great linguists), and if a Russian isn’t spontaneous he isn’t anything at all. Then when I did go to their houses their meals simply killed me. They make one eat such a lot and drink such a lot and sit up all night—I simply couldn’t stand it. So at first I was awfully lonely and unhappy—awfully unhappy.” She sighed in sympathy and pressed closer to him. “I’m not the sort of man,” Philip went on, “to stand being lonely. It’s bad for me. Some men like it. It simply _kills_ me. But after about six months or more I knew a little Russian, and I got to know one or two Russians individually. There’s one thing I can tell you—that until you know a Russian personally, so that he feels that he’s got some kind of personal part in you, you simply don’t know him at all. It’s so easy to generalise about Russians. Wait until you’ve made a friend.... I made a friend, several friends. I began to be happier.”