! Well, you are not vexed because your old aunt tells you the plain truth? I always kept Etienne strictly in hand, for I found it necessary to do so.”

“Yes, that is how our relationship stands,” she went on.

“Prince Ivan Ivanovitch is my uncle, and your late mother’s uncle also. Consequently I must have been your mother’s first cousin — no, second cousin. Yes, that is it. Tell me, have you been to call on Prince Ivan yet?”

I said no, but that I was just going to.

“Ah, is it possible?” she cried. “Why, you ought to have paid him the first call of all! Surely you know that he stands to you in the position of a father? He has no children of his own, and his