Was it chance?--Was it really a trip over a tiresome veil...?
Anyhow Habee-ba-Begum had rounded a corner, and those two young things stood staring at each other as if they had never seen anything in the wide world before.
It was a real case of love at first sight.
As for him, he did not even realise what she was like. He only knew that she was beautiful exceedingly. And she knew he was a Prince indeed.
The mirth in their eyes died down. Then hers grew startled, his caught fire. So they stood; till suddenly hers flamed back into his, and with a low cry she huddled her draperies round her, turned, and fled after her mother.
Babar stood still as a stone. What had happened to him? He felt confused, lost, yet utterly, entirely, absurdly happy.
After a time he walked soberly downstairs feeling vaguely that the world was a new world, and that he must go and find himself.
Once in the street he went on walking blindly, on and on, till he found himself in desert places outside the town. Then, aimlessly, he turned back and walked as he had come, wandering through the city as though in search of mansions and gardens.
Yet all the while he felt as if he could neither sit nor go, neither stand nor walk.
He was literally obsessed by a passion, pure in its very intensity; a passion which at one and the same time made him long to be with its object, yet covered him with shame and confusion at the mere thought of her beauty.