"I do wonder what my dreadful secret fault is," she thought, as the Princess remarked that, as for her, she could fancy a slice of roast peacock. "This one, she added, lifting a second mouthful of dry bread on her fork, "is quite delicious."
"It's a game, isn't it?" asked Jimmy suddenly.
"What's a game?" asked the Princess, frowning.
"Pretending it's beef the bread and cheese, I mean."
"A game? But it is beef. Look at it," said the Princess, opening her eyes very wide.
"Yes, of course," said Jimmy feebly. "I was only joking."
Bread and cheese is not perhaps so good as roast beef or chicken or peacock (I'm not sure about the peacock. I never tasted peacock, did you?); but bread and cheese is, at any rate, very much better than nothing when you have gone on having nothing since breakfast (gooseberries and ginger-beer hardly count) and it is long past your proper dinner-time. Everyone ate and drank and felt much better.
"Now," said the Princess, brushing the bread crumbs off her green silk lap, "if you're sure you won't have any more meat you can come and see my treasures. Sure you won't take the least bit more chicken? No? Then follow me."
She got up and they followed her down the long hall to the end where the great stone stairs ran up at each side and joined in a broad flight leading to the gallery above. Under the stairs was a hanging of tapestry.
"Beneath this arras," said the Princess, "is the door leading to my private apartments." She held the tapestry up with both hands, for it was heavy, and showed a little door that had been hidden by it.