fear
vanished, although she still looked at him with dismay, evidently trying
to understand something. She held out her hands timorously also. At last
a shy smile rose to her lips.

"How do you do, prince?" she whispered, looking at him strangely.

"You must have had a bad dream," he went on, with a still more friendly
and cordial smile.

"But how do you know that I was dreaming about that?" And again she
began trembling, and started back, putting up her hand as though to
protect herself, on the point of crying again. "Calm yourself. That's
enough. What are you afraid of? Surely you know me?" said Nikolay
Vsyevolodovitch, trying to soothe her; but it was long before he
could succeed. She gazed at him dumbly with the same look of agonising
perplexity, with a painful idea in her poor brain, and she still seemed
to be trying to reach some conclusion. At one moment she dropped her
eyes, then suddenly scrutinised him in a rapid comprehensive glance. At
last, though not reassured, she seemed to come to a conclusion.

"Sit down beside me, please, that I may look at you thoroughly later
on," she brought out with more firmness, evidently with a new object.
"But don't be uneasy, I won't look at you now. I'll look down. Don't you
look at me either till I ask you to. Sit down," she added, with positive
impatience.

A new sensation was obviously growing stronger and stronger in her.

Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch sat down and waited. Rather a long silence
followed.

"H'm! It all seems so strange to me," she suddenly muttered almost
disdainfully. "Of course I was depressed by bad dreams, but why have I
dreamt of you looking like that?"

"Come, let's have done with dreams," he said impatiently, turning to her
in spite of her prohibition, and perhaps the same expression gleamed for
a moment in his eyes again. He saw that she several times wanted, very
much in fact, to look at him again, but that she obstinately controlled
herself and kept her eyes cast down.

"Listen, prince," she raised her voice suddenly, "listen prince...."

"Why do you turn away? Why don't you look at me? What's the object of
this farce?" he cried, losing patience.

But she seemed not to hear him.

"Listen, prince," she repeated for the third time in a resolute voice,
with a disagreeable, fussy expression. "When you told me in the carriage
that our marriage was going to be made public, I was alarmed at there
being an end to the mystery. Now I don't know. I