“Does she?” I cried in a fever, “does she love me?”
She slipped out of my hands and danced off, laughing gleefully.
“I do not know,” she cried, “she is a princess, sir, and no one knows her mind.”
I could have shaken the provoking little witch.
“Ah, perhaps she loves Prince Galitsyn,” I suggested coldly; “he had her miniature.”
The girl’s face sobered. “I gave it to him,” she said, “to plague Daria; she did not mean to do it. We changed the pictures to tease Sophia, and I gave it to Galitsyn; I was wrong, for all this ill came of it, but”—she stopped and rubbed her shoulder comically—“I got a beating for it!” she said, pouting.
“But when can I see her?” I cried passionately. “I will follow you and find her.”
“No, no,” she retorted, like a flash, “you would not find her, but old Yekaterina,” and she laughed like a chime of bells.
Then she listened and held up her finger.
“She calls and I must go,” she said, “and Daria will see you here, monsieur, to-night—at sundown—if all goes well—adieu,” and she fled from me, perhaps three yards, and then: