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 ing straight in his direction. “Are you there?” she called in a subdued tone. “Come down and then to the left.”

He slid down from the rampart and pushed his way through the bushes in the direction indicated. There against the wall was a heap of all sorts of objects: rusty hoops, tin pots full of holes, old top hats, filthy rags; God knows how such things had accumulated in the castle. And in front of this miserable pile was standing the Princess, fresh and beautiful, and childishly biting her fingers. “I used to come here to be angry, when I was little,” she said. “Nobody knows of the place. Do you like it here?”

He saw that she would be annoyed if he was not pleased with it. “I like it,” he said quickly.

Her face glowed with pleasure and she put an arm round his neck. “You dear! I used to put an old pot on my head, you know, as a crown and pretended to myself that I was the reigning princess. ‘What may Her Excellency deign to want?’ ‘Harness the four-in-hand; I’m going to Zahur.’ You know, Zahur, that was the place I’d invented. Zahur, Zahur! Darling, is there really such a place in the world? Come, we’ll go to Zahur! Discover it for me, you who know so much”

She had never been so fresh and joyful as to-day. So much so that it filled him with jealousy, with a passionate suspicion. He took her in his arms and pressed her to him. “No,” she defended herself, “don’t. Be reasonable. You are Prospero, the Prince of Zahur, and you’ve only disguised yourself as a magician in order to abduct me. I don’t know.