All spoiled, no one loved, her.
All around were traces of work or play, begun and left unfinished—draught-board, cards, chessmen, patience, embroidery, drawings, patterns. She is sitting, in a white embroidered dressing-gown, upon a wide divan, both feet drawn up under her. Beside her sits the Circassian Princess on a low stool.
His Imperial Majesty is received ungraciously. Evidently he has interrupted the two girls in some amusement. And yet he seems to have the right to go up to Sophie and, taking her face between both hands, to imprint a hearty kiss upon her cheek—a kiss the traces of which the girl, with childlike coquetry, instantly tries to remove by means of the sleeve of her dress, which has the effect of making the offending cheek as red as a rose.
"How are you feeling, my Madonna?"
"Oh, now you have come and interrupted the lovely story Bethsaba was telling me!"
"She shall go on with it. I will listen too."
"How can you, when you were not here at the beginning?"
"I know Bethsaba will not mind beginning it again."
The Princess nodded acquiescently, while Sophie, with a look, directed her father to take a seat at the other end of the divan. The Czar, understanding the look, did as he was bid; and, taking one of the girl's delicate, transparent hands in his, stroked it, and, as he did so, succeeded in feeling the pulse, to assure himself that there was still hope for her. He wanted to put a question, but the delicately pencilled eyebrows commanded silence, and the Ruler of All the Russias was obedient.
"Once upon a time," began the king's daughter, "there lived on the Caspian Sea a mighty king who took a lovely woman to wife, not knowing, when he did so, that she was a fire-worshipper. Now, fire-worshippers are in league with the Jinn (spirit), and the queen had promised the Jinn that if she married and bore a daughter she would give her to him when grown up. No sooner had the child become a maiden than the Jinn came and knocked at the king's door to claim her. The poor king was terribly frightened when he was told that the spirit had come to fetch away his daughter—"