The princess now retired into her boudoir, ordering Abricotina to follow her and make fast the door; but they could not keep out Leander, who was there as soon as they. However, the princess, believing herself alone with her confidante:
“Abricotina,” said she, “tell me truly, did you exaggerate in your description of the unknown prince, for methinks it is impossible he should be as amiable as you say?”
“Madam,” replied the damsel, “if I have failed in anything, it was in coming short of what was due to him.”
The princess sighed and was silent for a time; then resuming her speech: “I am glad,” said she, “thou didst not bring him with thee.”
“But, madam,” answered Abricotina, who was a cunning girl, and already penetrated her mistress' thoughts, “suppose he had come to admire the wonders of these beautiful mansions, what harm could he have done us? Will you live eternally unknown in a corner of the world, concealed from the rest of human kind? Of what use is all your grandeur, pomp, magnificence, if nobody sees it?”
“Hold thy peace, prattler,” replied the princess, “and do not disturb that happy repose which I have enjoyed so long.”
Abricotina durst make no reply; and the princess, having waited her answer for some time, asked her whether she had anything to say. Abricotina then said she thought it was to very little purpose her mistress having sent her picture to the courts of several princes, where it only served to make those who saw it miserable; that every one would be desirous to marry her, and as she could not marry them all, indeed none of them, it would make them desperate.
“Yet, for all that,” said the princess, “I could wish my picture were in the hands of this same stranger.”
“Oh, madam,” answered Abricotina, “is not his desire to see you violent enough already? Would you augment it?”
“Yes,” cried the princess; “a certain impulse of vanity, which I was never sensible of till now, has bred this foolish fancy in me.”