The little princess was greatly changed. She looked ugly rather than pretty now. Her cheeks were sunken, her lip was drawn up, and her eyes were hollow.

“Yes, a sort of heaviness,” she said in answer to the prince’s inquiry how she felt.

“Isn’t there anything you need?”

“Non, merci, mon père.”

“Oh, very well then, very well.”

He went out and into the waiting-room. Alpatitch was standing there with downcast head.

“Filled up the road again?”

“Yes, your excellency; for God’s sake, forgive me, it was simply a blunder.”

The prince cut him short with his unnatural laugh.

“Oh, very well, very well.” He held out his hand, which Alpatitch kissed, and then he went to his study.

In the evening Prince Vassily arrived. He was met on the way by the coachmen and footmen of the Bolkonskys, who with shouts dragged his carriages and sledge to the lodge, over the road, which had been purposely obstructed with snow again.

Prince Vassily and Anatole were conducted to separate apartments.

Taking off his tunic, Anatole sat with his elbows on the table, on a corner of which he fixed his handsome, large eyes with a smiling, unconcerned stare. All his life he had looked upon as an uninterrupted entertainment, which some one or other was, he felt, somehow bound to provide for him. In just the same spirit he had looked at his visit to the cross old gentleman and his rich and hideous daughter. It might all, according to his anticipations, turn out very jolly and amusing. “And why not get married, if she has such a lot of money? That never comes amiss,” thought Anatole.

He shaved and scented himself with the care and elegance that had become habitual with him, and with his characteristic expression of all-conquering good-humour, he walked into his father’s room, holding, his head high. Two valets were busily engaged in dressing Prince Vassily; he was looking about him eagerly, and nodded gaily to his son, as he entered with an air that said, “Yes, that’s just how I wanted to see you looking.”

“Come, joking apart, father, is she so hideous? Eh?” he asked in French, as though reverting to a subject more than once discussed on the journey.

“Nonsense! The great thing for you is to try and be respectful and sensible with the old prince.”

“If he gets nasty, I’m off,” said Anatole. “I can’t stand those old gentlemen. Eh?”

“Remember that for you everything depends on it.”

Meanwhile, in the feminine part of the household not only the arrival of the minister and his son was already known, but the appearance of both had been minutely described. Princess Marya was sitting alone in her room doing her utmost to control her inner emotion.

“Why did they write, why did Liza tell me about it? Why, it cannot be!” she thought, looking at herself in the glass. “How am I to go into the drawing-room? Even if I like him, I could never be myself with him now.” The mere thought of her father’s eyes reduced her to terror. The little princess and Mademoiselle