"It is not so, Godmother," he replied; "I'm quite prepared to obey your wishes. After all, since I must marry, I am not likely to find a more advantageous match than this. Besides, I couldn't possibly back out of it now—even if I desired."
"And what," asked the Fairy, "if you actually meet the Princess of your dreams?" She was ignorant of the Queen's man[oe]uvre, and so thought he could not well fail to come across Daphne that very evening.
"That is so likely!" he said bitterly. "A mere creation of my own mind—an ideal that I ought to have known would never be realised! No, Godmother, since there is no hope of that, it matters little to me whom I marry!"
"Listen to me, Mirliflor," said the Fairy impatiently. "I—I'm not so bent on this alliance as I was. Never mind why—but I'm not. And—and—if you would rather withdraw, it's not too late. I see nothing to prevent you."
"Nothing to prevent me!" replied Mirliflor indignantly. "There is my honour! What Prince with any sense of honour at all could propose to a Princess and then inform her that he finds, after a personal interview, that he has changed his intentions? You of all people, Godmother Voldoiseau, should know that we cannot do these things!"
"Those ideals again!" said the exasperated Fairy. "You'll drive me out of all patience directly! But there—I've said all I could, and if you will be pig-headed, you must. And now I'll ask you to go away, as I'm really not well enough to bear any more conversation."
He had not been gone more than ten minutes when there was another knock at her door, and this time it was Princess Edna herself who entered.
"So it's you, is it?" snapped the Court Godmother, with none of her customary urbanity. And then, recollecting the necessity of keeping up appearances, threw in a belated "my dear." "Well, I hear you are taking time before you put Mirliflor out of suspense, but I presume you've already decided to accept him?"
"That's what I came to consult you about, Court Godmother," replied Edna. "I don't feel that I—he is at all a person I could ever be happy with. He is not on the same intellectual plane with me—we should have nothing whatever in common. He seems to have none of the qualities that would make me respect and look up to a man."
Relieved though she was, the Fairy still resented any disparagement of her favourite godson from such a quarter.