But the young girl was not to be discouraged. With the authority of a "big sister" she turned around the chair of the recalcitrant boy and forced him to let her disentangle his disordered hair. While thus giving him her care with as much affection as grace, Septimine, standing behind him said: "Are you not a hundred times better looking this way, my dear prince?"
"What is the difference, good looking or not?... I am not allowed to leave this convent.... What have I done to be so wretched?"
"Alack, poor little one ... you are the son of a king!"
The boy made no answer, but he hid his face in his hands and fell to weeping, from time to time crying in a smothered voice: "My father.... Oh, my father.... Alas!... He is dead!"
"Oh, if you again start crying, and, worst of all, to speak of your father, you will make me also cry. Although I scold you for your negligence, I do pity you. I came to give you some hope, perhaps."
"What do you mean, Septimine?"
Having finished dressing the boy's hair, the young girl sat down near him on a stool, took up her distaff, began to spin and said in a low and mysterious voice: "Do you promise to be discreet?"
"Whom do you expect I can talk to? Whom could I reveal secrets to? I have an aversion to all the people in this place."
"Excepting myself.... Not true?"
"Yes, excepting you, Septimine.... You are the only one who inspires me with some little confidence."