and understood that it was useless and even cruel to insist.

"At least, change your coiffure," said the little princess. "Didn't I
tell you," she went on, turning reproachfully to Mademoiselle Bourienne,
"Mary's is a face which such a coiffure does not suit in the least. Not
in the least! Please change it."

"Leave me alone, please leave me alone! It is all quite the same to me,"
answered a voice struggling with tears.

Mademoiselle Bourienne and the little princess had to own to themselves
that Princess Mary in this guise looked very plain, worse than usual,
but it was too late. She was looking at them with an expression they
both knew, an expression thoughtful and sad. This expression in Princess
Mary did not frighten them (she never inspired fear in anyone), but they
knew that when it appeared on her face, she became mute and was not to
be shaken in her determination.

"You will change it, won't you?" said Lise. And as Princess Mary gave no
answer, she left the room.

Princess Mary was left alone. She did not comply with Lise's request,
she not only left her hair as it was, but did not even look in her
glass. Letting her arms fall helplessly, she sat with downcast eyes and
pondered. A husband, a man, a strong dominant and strangely attractive
being rose in her imagination, and carried her into a totally different
happy world of his own. She fancied a child, her own--such as she had
seen the day before in the arms of her nurse's daughter--at her own
breast, the husband standing by and gazing tenderly at her and the
child. "But no, it is impossible, I am too ugly," she thought.

"Please come to tea. The prince will be out in a moment," came the
maid's voice at the door.

She roused herself, and felt appalled at what she had been thinking, and
before going down she went into the room where the icons hung and, her
eyes fixed on the dark face of a large icon of the Saviour lit by a
lamp, she stood before it with folded hands for a few moments. A painful
doubt filled her soul. Could the joy of love, of earthly love for a
man, be for her? In her thoughts of marriage Princess Mary dreamed of
happiness and of children, but her strongest, most deeply hidden longing
was for earthly love. The more she tried to hide this feeling from
others and even from herself, the stronger it grew. "O God," she said,
"how am I to stifle in my heart these temptations of the devil? How am I
to renounce forever these vile fancies, so as p