“Allow me to introduce you to my daughter,” said the countess, with heightened color.
“I have the pleasure of being already acquainted, if the countess remembers me,” said Prince Andréy with a low and courteous bow quite belying Perónskaya’s remarks about his rudeness, and approaching Natásha he held out his arm to grasp her waist before he had completed his invitation. He asked her to waltz. That tremulous expression on Natásha’s face, prepared either for despair or rapture, suddenly brightened into a happy, grateful, childlike smile.
“I have long been waiting for you,” that frightened happy little girl seemed to say by the smile that replaced the threatened tears, as she raised her hand to Prince Andréy’s shoulder. They were the second couple to enter the circle. Prince Andréy was one of the best dancers of his day and Natásha danced exquisitely. Her little feet in their white satin dancing shoes did their work swiftly, lightly, and independently of herself, while her face beamed with ecstatic happiness. Her slender bare arms and neck were not beautiful—compared