uiet, gentle
irony because he thought she was trying what she believed to be the last
means of arousing him.

"Yes, I shall be very glad to see him. Is he quite well?"

When little Nicholas was brought into Prince Andrew's room he looked at
his father with frightened eyes, but did not cry, because no one else
was crying. Prince Andrew kissed him and evidently did not know what to
say to him.

When Nicholas had been led away, Princess Mary again went up to her
brother, kissed him, and unable to restrain her tears any longer began
to cry.

He looked at her attentively.

"Is it about Nicholas?" he asked.

Princess Mary nodded her head, weeping.

"Mary, you know the Gosp..." but he broke off.

"What did you say?"

"Nothing. You mustn't cry here," he said, looking at her with the same
cold expression.

When Princess Mary began to cry, he understood that she was crying at
the thought that little Nicholas would be left without a father. With
a great effort he tried to return to life and to see things from their
point of view.

"Yes, to them it must seem sad!" he thought. "But how simple it is.

"The fowls of the air sow not, neither do they reap, yet your Father
feedeth them," he said to himself and wished to say to Princess Mary;
"but no, they will take it their own way, they won't understand!
They can't understand that all those feelings they prize so--all our
feelings, all those ideas that seem so important to us, are unnecessary.
We cannot understand one another," and he remained silent.

Prince Andrew's little son was seven. He could scarcely read, and knew
nothing. After that day he lived through many things, gaining knowledge,
observation, and experience, but had he possessed all the faculties he
afterwards acquired, he could not have had a better or more profound
understanding of the meaning of the scene he had witnessed between
his father, Mary, and Natasha, than he had then. He understood it
completely, and, leaving the room without crying, went silently up
to Natasha who had come out with him and looked shyly at her with his
beautiful, thoughtful eyes, then his uplifted, rosy upper lip trembled
and leaning his head against her he began to cry.

After that he avoided Dessalles and the countess who caressed him and
either sat alone or came timidly to Princess Mary, or to Natasha of whom
he seemed even fonder than of his aunt, and clung to them quietly and
shyly.

When Princess Mary had left Pr