As he said this, Nuova involuntarily, in response to her feelings, gave an even harder tug at his wings.
Hero exclaimed again, and half-pulled away from her. He spoke almost angrily.
"Here, what are you doing?" he cried. Then, as he looked into the eager, excited, pretty face of his little attendant, he felt his heart give a curious throb. And when he spoke again it was almost tenderly.
"Well, you are good to try and help me, anyway. But"—and now he spoke rather moodily—"I don't need much preparing. I can beat any of them"—and he waved contemptuously toward the other drones—"easily, just as I am."
Poor Nuova! He could hardly have said a more discouraging thing to her, or one to hurt her more. She drew back a little and had hard work not to cry. She half-sobbed as she said: "That—is—fine. I am sure—you can." She paused. Then she said slowly: "And if you do beat them, are you sure to get—her? Are you sure to be able to catch—her?"
The excitement on the platform was growing. The drones seemed to be getting impatient, and the attendants worked feverishly at the cleaning and making ready for the wonderful event about to happen. The infection of all this excitement began to seize Hero. He had turned his face away from Nuova to stare intently at the opening of the hive. It was there, of course, that the Princess would soon appear.
At Nuova's last question he started a little. "Eh?" he said rather brusquely. "Oh, yes, of course, I can catch her. She will fly faster than we at first, but she can't keep it up as long as we can. She will try to go higher and higher in the air, but that is hard work. That is when we shall catch up with her." He paused, then added, musingly: "It is odd; she is trying her best to get away from us and yet she wants to get caught all the time. She must get caught, you know, or we shouldn't have any Queen, and the hive would go all to pieces. The old Queen never comes back, of course. The Princess is our one chance to have a Queen at all."
Nuova seemed to be thinking hard. Something was puzzling her. "But," she asked insistently, "what really does happen if a Princess doesn't get caught, or something happens to her. There must be some way to save the community, isn't there?"
Hero seemed to have lost interest again in Nuova and her questionings. He was gazing fixedly at the hive entrance.
"Oh," he said carelessly, "I don't know. I've heard sometimes that a worker bee can—"