“Yes, I am, but please don’t let us do like that.⁠ ⁠… In another four years⁠ ⁠… then I will ask for your hand.”

Natásha considered.

“Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen,” she counted on her slender little fingers. “All right! Then it’s settled?”

A smile of joy and satisfaction lit up her eager face.

“Settled!” replied Borís.

“Forever?” said the little girl. “Till death itself?”

She took his arm and with a happy face went with him into the adjoining sitting room.