“I wonder what sort of a magician is wanted. Perhaps the fairy prince kind”—and I looked across the table to where Andros was making a three-cornered conversation with Forsyth and Ziné. The doctor never failed to find himself next to Ziné at every meal, which was more than I could achieve with Aryenis.
“Fairy princes never read thoughts,” flashed Aryenis. “They’re always far too stupid!”
I wondered if she had been quarrelling with Andros that day. It was three days since she had asked me to ride with her, and now she suddenly said she had wanted me to go out that evening.
“Are they always stupid? I thought they were supposed to be clever.”
“No. They are perfect fools generally,” she retorted, looking very deliberately at the trio opposite.
“That’s rather bad luck on the princesses, then.”
“You don’t suppose they worry their heads about it, do you? There are other people in the world besides fairy princes with dragon marks, or without them, for that matter,” said she loftily.
“Still in the end of the story she generally marries the prince. That’s what I mean about being sorry. I wasn’t insinuating that the princesses worried their pretty heads about the princes—I was merely considering the dullness of being married to some one who was a perfect fool.”
“They wouldn’t marry them. There’s always the swineherd or some one sensible who can read thoughts in the story.” This very disdainfully.
I felt crushed. “Then I shall go and be a swineherd.”