I was still more abashed; however, I raised my eyes to her. She smiled, not her former smile, but a smile of approbation. ‘Look at me,’ she said, dropping her voice caressingly: ‘I don’t dislike that � I like your face; I have a presentiment we shall be friends. But do you like me?’ she added slyly.

‘Princess � ’ I was beginning.

‘In the first place, you must call me Zina�da Alexandrovna, and in the second place it’s a bad habit for children’ – (she corrected herself) ‘for young people – not to say straight out what they feel. That’s all very well for grown-up people. You like me, don’t you?’

Though I was greatly delighted that she talked so freely to