“Too true. And he treats his own family no more indulgently than he treats the public. He has kept his daughters under restraint for a week upon a diet of bread and water merely for yawning at church. And in the Greek Church, you must know, one has to stand, and not sit; and the service usually lasts three hours.”
“Who would be a grand duchess?” smiled Wilfrid.
“Times will be different when little Sasha comes to the throne.”
“And who is little Sasha?” asked Wilfrid absently.
“The Czarovitch, to be sure—Alexander.”
“Of course—called little because he is like his father in stature?”
This remark drew a laugh from the Baroness and a smile from her maid.
“‘Little’ is a term of endearment. He stands six feet two inches high in his boots.”
“My height exactly,” remarked Wilfrid.
Pauline paused with her cup half-way to her lips, and looked doubtfully at Wilfrid.