CHAPTER XVI
"A CLOUD THAT'S DRAGONISH"
At the first opportunity Mirliflor had returned to the pavilion groves, where he need no longer worship from a distance. Daphne had received him graciously enough, but somehow he went away with a feeling that he had lost ground. He saw her every day after that, occasionally in the daytime, whenever he could evade the Head Gardener's eye, and always in the evening. She would talk to him from her window, or sometimes she would consent to come out and stroll with him in the golden dusk along grass-grown paths bordered with high and ragged walls of yew. And yet he parted from her with a sorer heart every evening. She had been as enchanting as ever, but quite as indifferent. It was useless to tell her how he loved her; whenever he had tried she had made him understand that, if he said any more, he would spoil the friendship between them. So he said no more.
Sometimes she had made him angry. Unfortunately he could never quite forget his rank, and he resented the airy way in which she treated him as a person of no particular importance. She would even laugh at his efforts to assert his dignity—and he was unused to being laughed at, especially as he often did not even understand why she laughed. For Fairy Princes have never been noted for their sense of humour, and poor Mirliflor was certainly no exception. Once, when she had innocently permitted herself to remark that she thought Prince Mirliflor had shown very little spirit or determination in his wooing of Princess Edna, he lost his temper so completely as to tell her that she would be wiser not to pass judgment on matters of which she knew so little. Daphne's silence showed how deeply he had offended, but he was too proud to conciliate her, and so his evening came to an abrupt end in mutual coolness. On his way back he cursed himself for his folly. He had done for himself now—she would never forgive him, never speak to him again! How could he have been so mad when his only happiness was being near her? But when he ventured back the next evening, prepared for final dismissal, he found her as frank and friendly as ever; she seemed to have forgotten that they had ever fallen out at all. Unfortunately this was rather humiliating than gratifying, since it only showed how utterly insignificant he was in her eyes.
But Daphne did not actually consider him insignificant at all. She was rather interested in this plain, ordinary-looking youth with a lofty manner and an air of authority that seemed so incongruous, and yet, even while she laughed at him for them, impressed her in spite of herself. He was not quick at seeing a joke—especially against himself—and she enjoyed teasing and provoking him as she would not have done in the case of anyone she disliked.
She knew he was absolutely devoted to her, and although she had made him understand that he must avoid any approach to sentiment, she was touched by his devotion, and sorry that she could make him no better return.
"But it's no use," she thought remorsefully, "I simply couldn't care in that way for any man who hadn't some good looks. I can't be more than a friend to Giroflé—and, luckily, I believe he's beginning to see that at last!"
Mirliflor had certainly begun to see that he was too severely handicapped to have a chance of success, and he paid a secret visit to his Godmother's apartments to tell her so. But she was deaf to all his protests, and declined to restore him to his own form until he had either won Daphne or been refused by her. He came away furious, regretting that he had ever been such a fool as to put himself at the mercy of this obstinate old Fairy's whims. If he had not, he would not have met Daphne—but better a thousand times that he had never seen her if she was not to be his!
His visit had one result. Old Baron von Eisenbänden happened to observe him leaving the tower, and it struck him as suspicious that so august a personage as the Court Godmother should have any dealings with an under-gardener. She must be using the fellow as her agent in some intrigue or other, he concluded, and, as she had not chosen to confide in him, it was clearly his duty to his Sovereigns to discover what she was about.
His cap of darkness might be of service to him here, but since the fiasco of the self-supplying tables he had been distrustful of any article supplied by the Astrologer Royal. However, it seemed as though the sudden decay of the tables had been due less to any malicious revenge on Xuriel's part than to some imperfection in his magic—for the cap proved to be as efficient as ever. So, after satisfying himself of this, the worthy Baron put it on and prowled unseen about the Court Godmother's tower. For some days his vigilance was unrewarded, but at length he saw Giroflé hurrying down a gallery that led to the Fairy's door, and immediately gave chase. Unfortunately he arrived too late to slip in behind him, and the thickness of the door made it impossible to overhear anything of the conversation till the very end of the interview. Then, as the door was open and the Court Godmother had accompanied Giroflé to the threshold, their parting words were perfectly audible.