Do you not remember that you offered
to be my friend?" She read him through and through, his
embarrassment, the tell-tale color in his cheeks. She laughed,
and there was nothing but youth in the laughter. "Certainly you
are afraid of me."
"I confess I am," he said. "I can not remember all I said to you."
Suddenly she, too, remembered something, and it caused the red
of the rose to ripple from her throat to her eyes. "Poor dog!
Not that they hated him, but because I love him!" Tears started
to her eyes. "See, Monsieur Carewe; princesses are human, they
weep and they love. Poor dog! My playmate and my friend. But for
you they might have killed him. Tell me how it happened." She
knew, but she wanted to hear the story from his own lips.
His narrative was rather disjointed, and he slipped in von
Mitter as many times as possible, thinking to do that individual
a good turn. Perhaps she noticed it, for at intervals she smiled.
During the telling he took out his handkerchief, wiped the
dog's head with it, and wound it tightly about the injured leg.
The dog knew; he wagged his tail.
How handsome and brave, she thought, as she observed the face in
profile.
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