At these words King Loc turned his head away, but not so soon but that Honey-Bee saw the tears in his eyes. Then Honey-Bee was grieved because she had pained him.
“Little King Loc,” she said to him, “I love you for the little King Loc you are; and if you make me laugh as Francoeur did, there is nothing in that to vex you, for Francoeur sang well and he would have been very handsome if it had not been for his grey hair and his red nose.”
“Honey-Bee of Clarides, Princess of the Dwarfs,” the king replied, “I love you in the hope that some day you will love me. And yet without that hope I should love you just the same. The only return I ask for my friendship is that you will always be honest with me.”
“Little King Loc, I promise.”
“Well then, tell me truly, Honey-Bee, do you love some one else enough to marry him?”
“Little King Loc, I love no one enough for that.”
Whereupon King Loc smiled, and seizing his golden cup he proposed, with a resounding voice, the health of the Princess of the Dwarfs. An immense uproar rose from the depths of the earth, for the banquet table reached from one end to the other of the Empire of the Dwarfs.
