"It bites," answered the Prince. "It stays somewhere in the woods and swamps, and every year it eats a great number of youths and maidens, and old men and children. It's always hungry."
"Why doesn't somebody go and kill it?" said the Princess.
"Dunno!" answered Auguste Philippe.
"What does it look like?"
"It has one great eye," answered the Prince unhesitatingly, knowing that life demanded that he should instruct the feminine mind whether he had information or not; "it has ten great rows of teeth, and what it does not bite with one set it bites with another. It never roars—that makes it worse than a dragon, for you can't tell when it is coming. And it has a hundred thousand claws reaching everywhere."
The Princess went and sat by a rosebush, wearing her most enigmatical expression. If she was overawed, she was too plucky to show it. Prince Auguste Philippe looked at her, not without remorse. He was aware that he knew nothing of the Microbe save its name, but he decided not to confess—it would only shake a sister's confidence, so he went away to fly his kite.
Now, years flew past, and every day the Princess's bosom swelled with knightly ardor, and every waking thought was of the slaying of the Microbe. The words of Auguste Philippe that day by the rosebush became the second inspiration of her life, and the second only completed and strengthened the first. At eighteen, as at six, the Princess Olivera Rinalda Victorine was round of face and pink of cheek. Her big blue eyes, set in the baby fairness of her face under the yellow hair, had the confiding look of a little child. All this was very pretty, but manly sports had developed her physique far beyond the bounds of feminine propriety. There were muscles on her lovely shoulders, and they made her tiring-women weep. As for her biceps, she had always to wear loose, flowing sleeves, for the strong arms broke through the embroidery of tight ones. She was taller than she should have been, and her waist refused to taper. If her sex had been different, the royal parents would have gloried in her strength and her agility, but as it was, they cast down their eyes in her presence and begged her, if she had any filial reverence, to talk mincingly and small, at least in their presence.
One day the Princess Olivera Rinalda Victorine sought out Lady Marie.
"I am going on a quest, to find and fight the Microbe," she remarked briefly. Lady Marie gave her one look, and fainted, and the Princess revived her by means of her vinaigrette.
"My dear!" whimpered Lady Marie, "think how many gray hairs you are bringing down in sorrow. I do not mean mine," she added hastily; and, in truth, hers were no longer gray.