“I am here, beautiful Graciosa! And not only ready but eager to help you. Do not fear. This task the Queen has set you is not as impossible as you seem to think it.”
It was Percinet who spoke. He had appeared before her, handsome and graceful as ever. He now approached the tub of feathers and touched it with the silver wand which he carried.
No sooner had he done this than the feathers arose in a many-colored cloud, and each kind, separating itself from the others, gathered in a little heap by itself.
Graciosa hardly knew how to thank the Prince.
“I desire no gratitude, but love only,” exclaimed Percinet. “Has not this taught you that as long as you are in the Queen’s power there is no safety for you? Oh, Graciosa, delay no longer. Come with me to my mother, and let us tell her you have consented to our marriage.”
But Graciosa could not yet make up her mind to trust him. “Dear Percinet,” she said, weeping, “do not think me ungrateful, but how can I, a mortal maiden, ever mate with one who is half a fairy? No, no. We could never be happy. Be to me a friend, as I will be to you, but do not ask me to marry you.”
Percinet was deeply offended; he could not help showing his resentment.
“Farewell, proud Princess,” he said to her. “You say you are not ungrateful, and yet with every word you show your lack of trust in me. Heaven send that you may not suffer for the scorn you show me.”
So saying, Percinet again disappeared, leaving the Princess alone and weeping.
The next day, at earliest dawn, Grognon hastened to Graciosa’s prison, and nothing could be greater than was her wonder and fury when she found the feathers separated and each kind lying neatly by itself.