"Princess, I must warn you," she added, lowering her voice and evidently listening to herself with pleasure, and speaking with exaggerated grasseyement, "the prince has been scolding Michael Ivanovich. He is in a very bad humor, very morose. Be prepared."

9th December

"And can`t it be helped?" she asked. Prince Andrew did not reply, but his face expressed the impossibility of altering that decision.