It was on the fifth day, after a bath, when he was brushing out her hair in the sun on the top of the knoll that he received the severe shock. Heaven knows that the princess was not a demonstrative child; indeed, she had never had the chance. But he had just finished his task and was surveying the shining result with satisfaction, when, of a sudden, without any warning, she threw her arms round his neck and kissed him.
“Oh, you are nice!” she said.
The Terror’s ineffable serenity was for once scattered to the winds. He flushed and gazed round the wood with horror-stricken eyes: if any one should have seen it!
The princess marked his trouble, and said in a tone of distress: “Don’t you like for me to kiss you?”
The Terror swallowed the lump of horror in his throat, and said, faintly but gallantly: “Yes—oh, rather.”
“Then kiss me,” said the princess simply, snuggling closer to him.
The despairing eyes of the Terror swept the woods; then he kissed her gingerly.
“I am fond of you, you know,” said the princess in a frankly proprietary tone.
The Terror’s scattered wits at last worked. He rose to his feet, and said quickly:
“Yes; let’s be getting to the others.”