"He was my friend," said the artisan. "His hut was then my home."
"Why do you wear a workingman's blouse and carve in stone?" demanded the Princess abruptly.
"Madame and Princess," replied the man, "it is the work that I have chosen," and he went on chipping away fine flakes of stone.
The lady walked away again, this time following a wayward peacock across the grass. The workingman paused to look after her, with the sunshine falling on her brown hair. Then he picked up a chisel that he had dropped, and, in doing so, bent to kiss the grass where her feet had rested, for she had trodden very close.
When the Princess came back the next time, she spoke with the quiet air of one who is greeting an old friend.
"You criticised my statue," she remarked. "You called it crude."
"Whoever reported my poor opinion to the Princess," said the man, "had evidently heard but part of what I said."
The Princess showed no curiosity as to the rest.
"Why were the others so unjust?" she demanded. "They praised my work when they thought it was a man's. They turned upon it and called it bad when they knew a girl had done it, and did not yet know that it was a princess. What can one do when it is all so unfair?"
The artisan answered not a word, but went on chipping, chipping, bending all his energy to the curve of a finger. The Princess watched with eyes in which all the blue of the autumn sky and all the shining of the autumn sun seemed centred. When the young man at length looked at her, her head was thrown back, and her face wore the look of one who feels her blood to be royal.