"Oh, there's no doubt she will accept you," she said, with a sharp twinge. "You need have no apprehensions on that score. And, as you no longer consider beauty indispensable, I daresay she will be as satisfactory a helpmate as you could wish." "I daresay," he agreed dully; and then his pent-up grievance suddenly broke out in spite of him. "With all respect to you, Godmother Voldoiseau," he said, "I don't consider you've treated me fairly over this! You persuaded me that it was my duty to marry at once, and that there were better and more permanent qualities than beauty. I'm not complaining of _that_--I am quite ready to believe that the Princess Edna is as learned and admirable a lady as you gave me to understand, while she is not without good looks of a kind. But why send me a vision representing her as a miracle of loveliness? That is a deception which I can't understand, and I confess I find hard to forgive!" How could she have foreseen that he would be foolish enough to imagine that the vision represented Edna? But the worst of it was that the Fairy could not explain her real intention just then without landing herself in fresh difficulties. So she sought refuge in prevarication. "_I_ send you a vision!" she said. "I don't know what you're talking about, Mirliflor. A vision, indeed!" "Didn't it come from _you_?" he asked lamely. "I--I made sure it must have." "You had no business to make sure of anything of the kind. And if you choose to dream that your future bride is more beautiful than she happens to be, I don't see why you should put the blame on _me_! But the truth is you're longing for some excuse for getting out of this marriage. Come, Mirliflor, you know you are--and you had better say so frankly." "It is not so, Godmother," he replied; "I'm quite prepared to obey your wishes. After all, since I _must_ marry, I am not likely to find a more advantageous match than this. Besides, I couldn't possibly back out of it now--even if I desired." "And what," asked the Fairy, "if you actually meet the Princess of your dreams?" She was ignorant of the Queen's man[oe]uvre, and so thought he could not well fail to come across Daphne that very evening. "That is so likely!" he said bitterly. "A mere creation of my own mind--an ideal that I ought to have known would never be realised! No, Godmother, since there is no hope of that, it matters little to me whom I marry!" "Listen to me, Mirliflor," said the Fairy impatiently. "I--I'm not so bent on this alliance as I was. Never mind _why_--but I'm not. And--and--if you would rather withdraw, it's not too late. _I_ see nothing to prevent you." "Nothing to prevent me!" replied Mirliflor indignantly. "There is my honour! What Prince with any sense of honour at all could propose to a Princess and then inform her that he finds, after a personal interview, that he has changed his intentions? You of all people, Godmother Voldoiseau, should know that we cannot _do_ these things!"