After doing this several times, it ducked him quite suddenly down, head-foremost, into the nearest cup of tea.
The poor prince felt as if he were all softening and crumbling away into nothing, but it was only some of the paint coming off; and before he could be ducked a second time, Mabel, with a cry of dismay, rescued him from the indignant baby, which howled in a dreadful manner.
She dried him tenderly on her handkerchief, and then, as she saw the result, suddenly began to weep inconsolably herself. 'Oh, see what Baby's done!' she gasped between her sobs; 'all his lovely complexion ruined, spoilt ... I wish somebody would just spoil Baby's face for him, and see how he likes it.... If he isn't slapped at once—I'll never love him again!'
But nobody slapped the baby—it was soothed; and, besides, all the slaps hand could bestow would not bring back the prince's lost beauty.
His face was all the colours of the rainbow now; the yellow of his curls had run into his forehead, his brown eyes were smudged across his nose, and his cherry lips smeared upon his cheeks, while all the blue of his doublet had spread up to his chin.
He knew from what they were all saying that this had happened to him, but he did not mind it much, except at first; he had never been vain of his beauty, and it was delightful to hear Mabel's little tender laments over his misfortune; so long as she cared for him as he was—what did anything else matter?
In the schoolroom that morning he leaned against her writing-desk, and watched her turning fat books lazily over and inking her fair little hands, until she shut them all up with an impatient bang and yawned.
Why was it that at that precise moment the prince began to feel uncomfortable?
'Is it near dinner-time, Miss Pringle?' she asked. 'I'm so awfully hungry!'
The governess's watch showed an hour more to wait.