“You are very good to go,” said the other, “especially as you know nothing of me, I suppose.”
“I know only that you are the princess—the Russian princess,” said Martha.
Her companion frowned slightly, and, Martha thought, looked a little annoyed. She reflected that she ought not, perhaps, to have told her that her secret had been discovered.
The little frown soon passed, however, and the princess smiled genially as she said:
“I am living incognito in Paris to study painting, and I do not go into the world. When I am not working I am often bored, and I frequently long for companionship. You make me very grateful by giving me yours this morning.”
The princess was very tall—so tall that when Martha walked at her side she had to turn her face upward to speak to her. They walked along in the most natural companionship until they reached a cab-stand nearby, and Martha thought her divinity more worshipful than ever as she stood wrapped in her long cloak, with a large, black-plumed hat crowning her beautiful head, and said some words of gentle pity about the poor old, weak-kneed cab-horses drawn up in a line.
When they had entered a cab, and were seated side by side, the princess said abruptly:
“If you had not heard something of me, I should have told you nothing. Why should we ask questions about each other? We meet to-day, art students in a Paris atelier, and we shall part to-morrow. What have we to do with formalities? Of you I know that you are a young American studying painting here, and I think, in a way, sympathetic to me. I am content to know that, and no more, of you. Do you feel the same about me?”
Martha replied eagerly in the affirmative, and in five minutes the two had come to a perfect understanding. The girl felt her awe at being in “the presence” gradually fading away,