His heart went out in a tenderness that was half pain, to this naïve immature being leaning against his arm, full of the unconscious cravings of youth. It seemed to him that in helping her he must help himself. He stroked her cheek with an unsteady hand. "Come now, be good, sweet child," he said in a comforting tone. "Speak ... unburden your heart." She sighed heavily and turned her little head slightly towards his shoulder as if she would like to nestle there. "Just the same as she was then," he thought--"shy and defiant, but completely melted by kindness." She was still silent "Look here," he said, "I live under the same roof with you, but of your life, of your past, I know absolutely nothing." "You have never asked me about it," she replied. "Would you have told me if I had?" "Of course I would.... I will tell you now, this minute, if you like." She disengaged herself from his arm; an eager blissful smile lit up her face. "Of course I should like it. So fire away." The expression, "fire away," did not please her. It seemed scarcely suitable to the solemnity of the occasion, but his interest so delighted her that she quickly forgot the jarring note. "God knows," she said, "there isn't much to tell, after all. So far I haven't had many experiences, and what I have had are mostly stupid." "Do you remember your mother?" he interposed, to give her an opening. She cast her eyes up at the stars. "Yes, thank God!" she said. "I was nearly seven years old when she died. Ah! how I cried.... We lived in a big castle, amidst pure Poles. The castle was on a hill, and it had a colonnade leading down to the Weichsel, which was at the foot of the hill. She used to sit in the colonnade when it was warm, and the maids with red handkerchiefs on their heads carried shawls for her. And every minute she would say, '_Mnie jest zimno_,' which means, 'I am cold,' and then they used to put another shawl over her. The long rafts glided by on the river below, and on Wednesdays and Saturdays the steamboat came. She always watched the steamboat till it was out of sight and not a puff of its smoke to be seen, and when it had quite disappeared she used to say, '_Podniescie mnie_,' and that meant, 'Lift me up.' She wanted to see if she could catch another glimpse of it, standing up. She had brown hair and a face like wax, with very big dark eyes. There were always drops of perspiration on her cheeks. She was not tall, but rather small, and she had thin arms; but that came from illness and from grief, and perhaps from ennui. For she said constantly, 'I am very unhappy, and dreadfully dull.'" "And your father--where was he?" Leo asked. Her face hardened into an expression of hate. "I would rather not speak of my father," she answered; "he was bad.... Yes, he was bad, and I shall be bad too, for I am like him." "Good gracious!" he remonstrated; "who put that nonsense into your head?"