'Listen,' she rejoined.
'You don't know me yet.
I'm a very strange person; I like always to be told the truth.
You, I have just heard, are sixteen, and I am twenty-one: you see I'm a great deal older than you, and so you ought always to tell me the truth ... and to do what I tell you,' she added.
'Look at me: why don't you look at me?'
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.