When she had finished the King cried "Bravo," and then the court crowded about her, and Prince Hugh and Prince Richard asked her to dance with them; but Prince Merlin did not ask her, though he led out many ladies; and because of that it was as if she were dancing in the snow and rain, or on sharp stones.
The pain in her heart grew violent, and drove her at last to the orange-tree near which he stood. On the edge of its marble tub she sat down to rest, and all at once a golden orange dropped in her lap. She held it out to him. "You have drowned your scarlet ball, take this."
"Nay, for it is perishable," he said.
Then tears like pearls came slowly from her eyes and she was driven to say: "You alone have not asked me to dance. Did not my dancing please you?"
He replied, "I am not like my brothers," and he bowed and left her.
That night she lay on her broad bed beneath silken covers and sobbed bitterly because her heart told her that Prince Merlin was noble; yet her memory stung her with his cold words and averted eyes. Soon the third day would be over, and she would have to leave the court; for even if King Cuthbert acknowledged that she was a princess, what did that matter if Merlin did not know that she was his queen?
All next day she sat on the terrace which looks seaward and counted the sails coming up over the horizon like white petals blown from an invisible garden; and she would say, "If five come within a space of half an hour there will be hope for me"; but she always lost count, in thinking of his face.
That night she took off her woolen dress and she clothed herself in laces and over the laces she put on a cream silk gown all woven with apple blossoms, and she placed flowers upon her hair; then flashed before the mirror and smiled to see herself so beautiful. "Surely," she thought, "he will not turn from me to-night."
Then she put on her dancing-slippers; and went down. When she entered the banquet hall there was a stir and a murmur; and even King Cuthbert was silent with amazement over her beauty. Prince Hugh and Prince Richard came forward to meet her, and they bowed low, and looked very noble, indeed.
"Our father has played a merry jest upon us," they said. "You are, indeed, a princess and no beggar-maid." Then they began to dispute which should take her in to dinner. But her eyes were all for Prince Merlin, who, when the courtiers crowded about her and proclaimed her a princess, looked straight away from her. This was as a little sword in her heart, but the grief that dimmed her eyes made her appear even more beautiful.