bent card, and all at once she dazzled me with a glance so brilliant and rapid, that I could not help dropping my eyes. When her eyes, which were generally half closed, opened to their full extent, her face was completely transfigured; it was as though it were flooded with light.
'What did you think of me yesterday, M'sieu Voldemar?' she asked after a brief pause. 'You thought ill of me, I expect?'
'I . . . princess . . . I thought nothing . . . how can I? . . .' I answered in confusion.
'Listen,' she rejoined. 'You don't know me yet. I 'm a very strange person; I like always to be told the truth. You, I have just heard, are sixteen, and I am twenty-one: you see I 'm a great deal older than you, and so you ought always to tell me the truth . . . and to do what I tell you,' she added. 'Look at me: why don't you look at me?'
I was still more abashed; however, I raised my eyes to her. She smiled, not her former smile, but a smile of approbation. 'Look at me,' she said, dropping her voice caressingly: 'I don't dislike that . . . I like your face; I have a presentiment we shall be friends. But do you like me?' she added slyly.
'Princess . . .' I was beginning.
'In the first place, you must call me Zinaïda
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