"Why, when?" demanded the Princess. "Oh, you mean when I lifted your head. But look how it stands out."
He did so.
"You see," said Olivera Rinalda Victorine, "I am so unfeminine. I ought to have been a boy."
"Never!" cried the Knight vehemently.
The Princess looked at him in surprise.
"I'm very sure," she said gently. "I've known it ever since I was so high," and she measured off the stature of six years by holding her white hand above the ground.
"I don't agree with you," said the Knight. "You're not in the least like a boy, really. You do not look like one, nor use your arms like one."
"When have you noticed that?" asked the Princess, in surprise.
"Oh, lots of times," he answered evasively. "But tell me why you think so."
Sitting beside him, with the beech leaves making a flickering shade on her face and throat, the Princess told him all the tragedy of her life, her discovery of her initial great mistake, her unavailing efforts to set it right, and the persecutions she had suffered because she was not ladylike. It was the first confidence that she had made in all her life, and her cheeks flushed deep red. Overhead sang thrush and sparrow, and a little breeze came and played with her floating hair. Suddenly the Knight reached out and took the white hand in his and kissed it.