her cheek in the English fashion; this style went well with the cold expression of her face. My father sat beside her during dinner, and entertained his neighbour with the finished and serene courtesy peculiar to him. He glanced at her from time to time, and she glanced at him, but so strangely, almost with hostility. Their conversation was carried on in French; I was surprised, I remember, at the purity of Zinaïda's accent. The princess, while we were at table, as before made no ceremony; she ate a great deal, and praised the dishes. My mother was obviously bored by her, and answered her with a sort of weary indifference; my father faintly frowned now and then. My mother did not like Zinaïda either. 'A conceited minx,' she said next day. 'And fancy, what she has to be conceited about, avec sa mine de grisette!'
'It's clear you have never seen any grisettes,' my father observed to her.
'Thank God, I haven't!'
'Thank God, to be sure . . . only how can you form an opinion of them, then?'
To me Zinaïda had paid no attention whatever. Soon after dinner the princess got up to go.
'I shall rely on your kind offices, Maria Nikolaevna and Piotr Vassilitch,' she said in
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