At last his longing grew so great that he could withstand it no longer. He laid his hand upon the folds and drew it aside, and when he had done so, his heart melted within him for love and joy. For there was the portrait of a maiden so fair and lovely that all the other eleven beauties were as nothing beside her.
The Prince stood and looked at her, and she looked back at him, and she did not blush or beckon to him as the others had done, but rather she grew pale.
“Yes,” said the Prince at last, “you and you only shall be my bride, even though I should have to go to the ends of the world to find you.”
When he said that, the picture bowed its head gravely.
Then the Prince dropped the curtain and left the room and went down to where the old King was waiting for him. As soon as he came before his father, the old man asked whether he had found the room and entered it.
“I did,” answered the Prince.
“And what did you see in the room, my son?”
“I saw a picture of the maiden whom I wish to have for a wife.”
“And which of the eleven was it?”
“It was none of the eleven; it was the twelfth—she whose portrait hangs behind the curtain.”