Irene, who until then had appeared to observe me with a kind of restless mistrust, and who by degrees had become more friendly, came resolutely towards me and said, with childish solemnity:
"Look at me, that I may see whether I am going to love you."
Then after having fixed upon me one of those long, piercing glances of which I have spoken, and which compelled me to lower my eyes, Irene continued:
"Yes, I shall love you very much." And after a renewed silence, she turned to Madame de Fersen, saying:
"Yes, my dear mother, I shall love him very much. I shall love him as I loved Ivan!"
In saying these words, her childish face assumed such a fascinating expression of gravity that I could not avoid smiling.
But my astonishment was great when I saw Madame de Fersen look with amazement, first at Irene, and then at me, as if she attached a great importance to what her little girl had just said to me.
"Although I have nothing now to envy the happy Ivan, this is a declaration, madame, which I much fear will be forgotten ten years hence," said I to the princess.
"Forgotten! Irene forgets nothing. See her tears at the remembrance of Ivan."
In fact two large pearls were rolling down the child's cheeks, while she continued to fix upon me a glance at once sweet, sad, and questioning.