He fell upon one knee and kissed her hand. She looked down intently into his narrow, upraised face.
"Queen among princesses," he begged, "question me and accept my answer. From far Bobitania I have come to woo, and if I fail, I die. What is the question I must answer?"
"You have answered," said the Princess. "Rise."
The hand of the workman had paused, uplifted, with a sculptor's hammer in its grasp. There was a queer little smile upon his face below the shadow of the cap.
The waiting-women paced in silence behind the Princess back to the presence of the King.
"Most august Sovereign," said the Prince, bending his knee in the royal presence, "I have come to place my kingdom at your daughter's feet. Deign to ask her if I have found favor in her eyes."
"What say you, my daughter?" asked the King, his delight shining through his face. "Is it not a noble prince and a fair offer?"
"My Lord and Father," said the Princess Pourquoi, bending in courtesy, then standing erect, more haughty than before, "it is no prince, but a man with a lackey's soul. He may come to reign, but a king he can never be. As for my hand, he may not again touch it. I go to make it clean."
Then she turned and walked, in a great silence, between the parted lines of frightened people, out of the audience-chamber and away.
How Prince Ludwig Jerome Victor Christian Ernst went away in great anger, how the royal apologies were presented in vain, how the Princess Pourquoi was imprisoned for three days in her chamber with no books to read and was held in deep disgrace by all the court, is a long story, and one that would take much time to tell. But the Princess only smiled serenely, presented her duty to her parents, saying that she was deeply grieved if her necessary words had hurt them, and, the first day she was free, went walking in the royal garden alone.