The boy looked up, and through his tears he smiled, and then through his tears he laughed. And then he simply laughed very prettily and held out his right hand.
"Look at my hand a minute," he said.
Norman took the proffered hand and examined it with great embarrassment and wonder. "It is a very small hand," he said; "but I don't see what is the matter with it."
Then at last suspicion flashed across his mind. "Ah, you don't mean that!" he cried, suddenly dropping the hand and starting back.
"Good God," laughed Arnolfo rather wildly. "I can't think of any more hints to give you, barbarian! Must I strip to the waist?"
Norman gasped. "If you really are a woman, Arnolfo," he exclaimed, "I would much prefer that you did."
Then he stood motionless before her and for a time the two faced each other without a word, the King with his hand on the hilt of his sword, and the woman clasping across her body the great mantle, as though to preserve even at this hour, the virginity of her disguise.
"I am the Princess Ianthe," she said at last, with a dignity which the travesty could not obscure.
"You are a very beautiful woman," rejoined Norman, bending to kiss her hand. Then, looking at her with a rather inscrutable smile which strangely aged his youthful face, he added: "but I bitterly regret the loss of Arnolfo."
The Princess hung her head a little and seemed almost the boy again. "Is that all you have to say?" she murmured, "and yet there is nothing I would rather you had said than that."