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"Ah, I can't bear to hear you!" said the prince gloomily, getting

up from his low chair, and seeming anxious to get away, yet

stopping in the doorway. "There are laws, madam, and since you've

challenged me to it, I'll tell you who's to blame for it all: you

and you, you and nobody else. Laws against such young gallants

there have always been, and there still are! Yes, if there has

been nothing that ought not to have been, old as I am, I'd have

called him out to the barrier, the young dandy. Yes, and now you

physic her and call in these quacks."

The prince apparently had plenty more to say, but as soon as the

princess heard his tone she subsided at once, and became

penitent, as she always did on serious occasions.

"Alexander, Alexander," she whispered, moving to him and

beginning to weep.

As soon as she began to cry the prince too calmed down. He went

up to her.