culation that guided her (she did not even for a
moment consider what she should do), but all this had long been familiar
to her, and now that Anatole had appeared it just grouped itself around
him and she wished and tried to please him as much as possible.

The little princess, like an old war horse that hears the trumpet,
unconsciously and quite forgetting her condition, prepared for the
familiar gallop of coquetry, without any ulterior motive or any
struggle, but with naive and lighthearted gaiety.

Although in female society Anatole usually assumed the role of a man
tired of being run after by women, his vanity was flattered by the
spectacle of his power over these three women. Besides that, he was
beginning to feel for the pretty and provocative Mademoiselle Bourienne
that passionate animal feeling which was apt to master him with great
suddenness and prompt him to the coarsest and most reckless actions.

After tea, the company went into the sitting room and Princess Mary was
asked to play on the clavichord. Anatole, laughing and in high spirits,
came and leaned on his elbows, facing her and beside Mademoiselle
Bourienne. Princess Mary felt his look with a painfully joyous emotion.
Her favorite sonata bore her into a most intimately poetic world and the
look she felt upon her made that world still more poetic. But Anatole's
expression, though his eyes were fixed on her, referred not to her but
to the movements of Mademoiselle Bourienne's little foot, which he was
then touching with his own under the clavichord. Mademoiselle Bourienne
was also looking at Princess Mary, and in her lovely eyes there was a
look of fearful joy and hope that was also new to the princess.

"How she loves me!" thought Princess Mary. "How happy I am now, and how
happy I may be with such a friend and such a husband! Husband? Can it
be possible?" she thought, not daring to look at his face, but still
feeling his eyes gazing at her.

In the evening, after supper, when all were about to retire, Anatole
kissed Princess Mary's hand. She did not know how she found the courage,
but she looked straight into his handsome face as it came near to her
shortsighted eyes. Turning from Princess Mary he went up and kissed
Mademoiselle Bourienne's hand. (This was not etiquette, but then he did
everything so simply and with such assurance!) Mademoiselle Bourienne
flushed, and gave the princess a frightened look.

"What delicacy!" thought the princess. "I