"You may get her still, dear boy," said his fond Mother. "You see, she doesn't know who Mirliflor is yet—she thinks he's a student or something, pretending to be a gardener. Well, she's much too clever a little person not to get out of such an engagement as that if she knew she could be the Crown Princess." Which was no more than Queen Selina actually believed. "Trust me, Clarence," she concluded, "you've only to ask."
"I dare say you're right, Mater," he said, "only the worst of it is I'm not free to ask her."
"Not free? What do you mean?"
"I didn't like to tell you before," he said, "but—well, I—I've gone and got engaged to someone else."
"Engaged! Who to?" demanded the Queen, in her own English. "If it's anyone in my Court——!"
"It's no one you know, Mater. But she's all right, you know. At least, she's a King's daughter of sorts. Her Father's King of the Crystal Lake."
"The Crystal Lake!" cried Queen Selina. "You—you wretched boy! Don't tell me you're engaged to—to a Water-nixie!"
"Well, I suppose that's what it amounts to," he said. "I never wanted to be. I met her when I was fishing there. She came up out of the water, and we got talking and that, and I told her who I was. And after that, whenever I got to the lake, she was always popping up. I thought she was rather a jolly sort of girl if she was a trifle on the damp side, and it amused me to talk to her, but I never said a word to her that could—till her old Dad suddenly turned up and insisted on our being regularly engaged."
"And you gave way? Oh, Clarence, how could you be so weak?"
"I told him I'd see him blowed before I said yes, and he pulled me in and threatened to hold my head under water till I promised," said Clarence. "I didn't see any point in being drowned—and so—and so, sooner than have a row about it, I did say yes. What else could I say?"