"My darling, yes."
"May I live with you always—to the end of my days?"
He chuckled. "So that was it? Poor Ralph!"
"You know you are not sorry for him, Daddy. Don't be a hypocrite."
He drew her close to him. "I should be sorry for myself if he took you from me."
She clung to him. "He is not going to take me away."
"Was that what you were telling him on the balcony stairs?"
"Yes. And he said I was too young to know my own mind. That I was a sleeping Princess—and some day he would wake me—up—"
"Oh."
"And he is not the Prince, Daddy. There isn't any Prince."