Nadeshda was tremendously amused by what Mrs. Burke had said about pipes. "I didn't know it was considered nice for a lady to smoke in America until recently," said she. "And pipes! How eccentric! Mama smokes cigars--one after dinner, but I never heard of a lady smoking a pipe." "Ma wasn't a lady--what _you'd_ call a lady," replied Mrs. Burke. "She was just a plain woman. She didn't smoke because she thought it was fashionable, but because she thought it was comfortable. As soon as we children got a little older we used to be terribly ashamed of it--but _she_ kept right on. And now it's come in style." "Not _pipes_," said Jessie. "Not _yet_," said "ma," with a smile. When I thought they had all gone, and I was writing in my "office" for a few minutes before going up to dress, Nadeshda came in to me. "Ma" Burke used often to say that Nadeshda's eyes were "full of the Old Scratch," but certainly they were not at that moment. She was giving me a glimpse of that side which, as Browning, I think, says, even the meanest creature has and shows only to the person he or she loves. Not that Nadeshda loves me, but she has that side turned outermost nowadays whenever she hasn't the veil drawn completely over her real self. "My dear," she said in French, "what is it? Why these little smiles all afternoon whenever you forgot where you were?" I couldn't help blushing. "I don't quite know, myself," I replied--and it was so. "Oh, you cold, cold, _cold_ Americans!"--then she paused and gave me one of her strange smiles, with her eyes elongated and her lips just parted--"I mean, you American women." "Cold, because we don't set ourselves on fire?" I inquired. "But yes," she answered, "yourselves, and the men, too. Never mind. I shall not peep into your little secret." She laughed. "It always chills me to grope round in one of your cold American women's hearts." "I wish you could tell me what my secret is--and that's the plain truth," said I. She laughed again, shrugged her shoulders, pinched my cheek, nodded her head until her big plumed hat was all in a quiver and was shaking out volumes of the strong, heavy perfume she uses. And without saying anything more she went away. March 4. Cyrus and I sat next each other at dinner at the Secretary of War's to-night. It has happened several times this winter, as the precedence is often very difficult to arrange at small dinners. Old Alex Bartlett took me in, and as he's stone deaf and a monstrous eater I was free. Cyrus had taken in a silent little girl who has just come out. She had exhausted her little line of prearranged conversation before the fish was taken away. So Cyrus talked to me. "She's grateful for my letting her alone," said he when I tried to turn him back to his duty. "Besides, if I didn't meet you out once in a while you'd forget me entirely. And I don't want that, if I can avoid it."