It was not wholly then with surprise, since he felt himself so much in need of some compelling touch, that he heard, after an hour of futile battling, the Princess speak to him.
She stood just beyond him in the shadow of the wistaria that went up all the front of the balcony, and called him by his name.
"Ah," said Peter "I know now who you are. You are the one who stayed."
"How did you find out?"
"Because the one who ran away was the one he would have married."
He did not look at the Princess, but he saw the shadow of her that the moon made, mixed with the lace of the wistaria leaves, tremble.
"Well," said she, "and what are you going to do about it?"
"You know then ...?"
"I was there on the water with you this morning.... It was I that showed you the way, but you had no eyes for anything."
It was the swift recurrent start of what he had had eyes for that kept Peter silent long enough for the Princess to have asked him again what he was going to do about it, and then——