"Are you?" inquired Haskins, stupidly and thickly. He did not dare to move, or to follow his impulse, lest he should alarm her. She was as trusting as a tame bird, but a chance word or a too eloquent look might teach her that fear existed.
"Yes, of course I am. How silly you are. In Bellaria's stories the prince always comes to the princess, in the end. Mine would not come, so I sent that message. And now----" She stretched a hand to caress his face: "Oh my prince! my prince!"
"I may not be your prince after all," said Gerald weakly. He certainly felt unworthy of being so.
"But you are--you are!" cried Mavis, with conviction, "you would not have found my message otherwise. I flung it from one of the windows into the pool below. And you picked it up, so I know that you are my prince. And then," she added, naively, "you are so very handsome."
Haskins was pretty well hardened to admiration, since he knew more about women than was good for him. All the same the outspoken speech made him blush. "Who is Bellaria?" he asked abruptly, changing a too embarrassing subject.
"My nurse, who has looked after me all my life. I call her the Ogress, and my guardian the Ogre. Not but what they are both very kind. I have all I want, save liberty."
"And why cannot you get that?"
"It is not the custom of the country."
Haskins looked puzzled. "What do you mean, Mavis?"
She raised her clear truthful eyes. "Why, you know, don't you? Major Rebb told me that all girls were brought up in seclusion until they reached the age of twenty-one, and then they were taken out to see the world. I wish ten months were past," sighed imprisoned beauty, "for then I shall be one and twenty, and able to leave the Pixy's House. Bellaria says that I won't like the world; but I shall, I shall, I shall."