Page:Margaret sherwood--The Princess Pourquoi.djvu/106

 on her forehead, her fat legs hung dejectedly down. She was reaching back farther and farther into her dim little consciousness, trying to remember how she ever came to make that dreadful initial mistake. She had disappointed the Queen, her mother—here the sobs began again, for the Princess loved that royal lady; she had chosen, though she could not remember when, and had chosen wrongly. Then she began to wonder what it was to be this thing that the King and Queen and Lady Marie and the Duchess were so grateful for, a boy. She candidly thought that she was nicer than the two little counts and the archduckling, and she found her riddle hard to read, for no one had ever before suggested to her, much less explained, the disgrace of sex.