The princess laughed, throwing up her chin, and looking at Martha with an indulgent smile.
“You can’t?” she exclaimed. “Well, if you take the trouble to continue my acquaintance, you will find that I’ve missed pretty much everything in life that I very greatly wanted. It is sad, but true.”
Martha did not answer, but she looked as if she would like to speak out something that was on her mind, and her companion saw this, and said:
“What is it? Speak! I give you full permission.”
“It was nothing,” said Martha, rather confusedly. “I was wondering about you—as, of course, I can’t help doing. I don’t want to be told things, however. I would far rather imagine how they are.”
“Very, very sensible. I see that I shall like you more and more. There are a few things, however, which it will be well for you to know. For instance,”—she paused, with a slight look of reluctance, and then went on rapidly,—“no doubt you wonder whether I am married.”
Martha’s eyes confirmed her.
A cloud seemed to have settled with surprising suddenness upon the face of the princess. She looked fixedly at the passing prospect outside the window as, after a moment of difficult silence, she said almost brusquely:
“I am a widow.” Then she turned and looked at Martha. “You will understand, for the future,” she went on more naturally, “my wish for silence on this subject. I am living temporarily in Paris with my aunt. I used to know French society well, but I am out of it now, and I don’t regret it. Painting is the only thing I really care for—that, and music, and some books; some, but not many. Books give such false ideas of life. I think it was what I read in books that led me to expect so much. I was not to be convinced but that all the happiness I imagined was quite possible; and when it would not come to me, I thought there was a force in me which could compel it. As a rule, I’ve given that idea up; but there are times even yet when it rises and conquers me. I know it is very foolish, and that experience cures one of such feelings, but I’m not altogether cured yet, in spite of hard and repeated blows.”
Martha had listened with intense interest, and now, as her companion paused, she felt that she ought to volunteer, on her part, some sort of sketch of herself and her surroundings.