Page:I Know a Secret (1927).pdf/95

 him. Almost afraid that she had really gone into a hundred-year trance, he leaned over the Princess and touched her gently. She opened her eyes. To the horror of all the other marionettes, whose sense of artistic propriety was outraged, she sat up and held out her arms. They rang the curtain down at once, but it was too late. Already she was in his embrace.

They got out through the back of the theatre while the indignant puppets were still gaping. "Be careful of your strings," he said. "They're coming down."

"As if I cared!" she whispered to him. "Here, I'll show you." She seized the scissors.

Two little tangles of threads, all knotted together, lying by the stage door, were all they ever found of Jack and the Pea Princess. All sorts of rumours went round among the marionettes, and the old King and Queen, who had found her that wet night outside the castle gate, said they had always suspected she would come to no good. But it's my belief that you'll still find them, somewhere in the vegetable garden, keeping house very happily at the top of the tallest bean-pole.