"Where are you going?" asked the Knight.
"After It," said Victorine sternly.
"Lovely lady," he said feebly, "don't you think you ought to wait until I am better?"
"I'm not a lovely lady, I'm a warrior," said the Princess; "but of course I'll stay if you want me to."
"You are both," said the Knight. "Do you know I think that it would make me forget my pain if you should tell me of your fight."
So the Princess, with a shining face, told him of her battle in the mist, and of the monster with the great, glowing eye, and as she talked, she failed to see that the wounded man kept looking toward the spot where his gleaming helmet lay.
"And now," said the Princess reproachfully, with red flushing her cheeks, "tell me how you were wounded. Do you mind explaining how you came to be hurt in the back?"
"Somebody or something attacked me from behind," said the Knight, with a smile half hiding the look of pain on his face.
"The coward!" cried the Princess Victorine, in great anger.
"It may have been some one who did not know the rules of the game," said the Knight.