The sugar-urn slipped from Katerin’s fingers and crashed down upon the metal tray, spilling the sugar. And he heard her give a startled gasp. A look of utter astonishment came into her face and she gave him a frightened stare. The Russian words had put her into a swift panic—she was more than astonished—she was actually alarmed at hearing her own language flow so freely from the lips of a man she supposed to be an American. “Have I frightened you?” he asked, looking at her with feigned concern, and speaking gently. “Do you fear the sound of your own language?” “You are Russian,” she said simply, but with the faintest trace of a question in the words. “Oh, no, I am an American,” he replied easily. “True, I am of Russian blood.” He smiled at her, and she looked away from him swiftly, renewing her efforts to save the sugar which had been spilled from being wet in the bottom of the tray. He saw her fine white skin show a sudden flush of color that rose from her throat and mounted slowly to her cheeks, tinting the pale skin under her eyes. He thought now that she was more beautiful than he had at first realized. “Is it because I am Russian that you show fear?” he went on. She tossed her head a trifle, as if in defiance. “I do not fear you,” she said lightly, and gave him a shy smile. “I would be sorry if you did.” “It is very pleasant—that we may speak to each other and understand. I was surprised—yes. Now, there is your sugar, and I must go.” “No, please!” he objected as she turned as if to go to the door. “Everybody is surprised to hear the American officer speak real Russian, but no one stops to talk with me—and I am hungry for talk—talk in Russian. I have only just come, and the other girl would say only, ‘Yes, master’ and ‘No, master,’ and run away frightened, just as you are about to do.” “But I am not frightened,” she said, pretending to bother with the teapot on the top of the samovar. “But just now, at hearing your own language, you dropped the sugar dish. Is it not true?” Peter was joking her now in an effort to get on friendly terms with her. But she still appeared a bit distrait, as if she had not yet recovered from the shock of hearing a foreigner speaking the Czar’s Russian. “Yes, I was startled,” admitted Katerin, and now smiled at him frankly, though she gave him a searching look—the silver bars on his shoulders, the buttons of his blouse, the circle of brown tape at the cuffs of his tunic. “And you would be surprised, American, if a samovar girl should speak to you in perfect English.” “Probably I should,” said Peter. “As it was, you surprised me this morning—I was expecting the other girl to come.” She said nothing to that. She realized now that it would be foolish to expect him to think of her as of the servant class, and had already given up all ideas of making a pretense.