“Oh-h-h!” said Katherine, too much astonished to say another word. She did not know how to act when introduced to a princess.
“Is there anything I can do for your majesty?” she asked politely, remembering that the other had mentioned a lady-in-waiting that she seemed to be expecting.
“Light the lights!” commanded the voice imperiously.
Katherine took a step forward uncertainly. “Where—” she began.
“On the table beside you!” continued the voice.
Katherine put out her hand and came in contact with the edge of a table, and after groping for a moment found a box of matches. She struck one and by its flare saw an oil lamp standing on the table beside the matches. She lit it and looked around the room curiously. She could not see the owner of the voice at first. The room was large and shadowy and contained very little furniture. A bare pine table on which the lamp stood; a couple of kitchen chairs; a cot bed next to the wall; a small stove; a rocking chair and a sewing machine; these were the objects which the lamp illuminated. The other end of the room lay in deep shadow. It was from this shadow that the voice now issued again.
“Bring the lamp and come here,” it commanded.
Katherine picked up the lamp from the table and advanced toward the shadowy corner of the room. The darkness fled before her as she advanced and the corner sprang into light. She saw that the corner was a bay, with three long windows, in which stood a couch. On the couch was a mountain whose slopes consisted of vari-colored piecework, and from whose peak there issued, like an eruption of golden lava, a tangle of bright yellow curls which framed about a pair of big, shining eyes. The eyes were set in a face, of course—they had to be—but the face was so white and emaciated as to be entirely inconspicuous, so Katherine’s first impression consisted entirely of hair and eyes. The eyes were dark brown, a strange combination with the fair hair, and sparkled with a hundred little dancing lights, as the girl on the couch—for it was a girl apparently about fourteen years old—looked up at Katherine with a roguish smile.
“You must be Her Grace, the Marchioness St. Denis,” she said with an air of stately courtesy, “of whose presence in our realm we have been informed. I trust Your Grace is not over fatigued. You will pardon the informality of our life here,” she continued, her brown eyes traveling around the room and resting somewhat regretfully on the shabby furnishings. “We take up our residence in the Winter Palace for state occasions,” she went on, “but for our daily life we prefer the simplicity of our Hunting Lodge. We are less hampered by formal etiquette here.”
Katherine stared in perplexity. Winter Palace? Hunting Lodge? Her Grace the Marchioness? What was this strange child talking about? Her feeling of having wakened in the midst of a fairy tale deepened.