Time went by, each day sweet as new honey dripping golden from a golden comb, sweet, inexpressibly sweet, and the Princess, moving languidly, trembling with hope mingled with doubt and fear, would tell only her joys to the Maharaja Suddhodana and not her fears. For what help was there in him? He could not strengthen the guarding gates for they were strong and armed men watched by them, nor the walls, for they were high, and observed from watch-towers. And yet, day by day and night by night the spirit of Siddhartha had passed invisible between the swords and unsleeping eyes. But since the hope of the Princess was made known to him, he shut himself within the great gardens in spirit also. There should no cloud dim the eyes of the mother of his son—flowers must bud and blossom in her heart as about her slender feet, and no thought but peace and security creep into her Paradise. And little by little, as a wild deer glimpsing through the green flies in terror, yet may be slowly won with patience and tenderness till it will browse the rose-leaves in a girl’s hand, so was the fear of the Princess put to sleep, and a low song of joy and immeasurable thankfulness made music in her heart like the summer voice of Rohini after the melting of the snows—when the river is little and peaceful. And one day the Maharaja came to visit her in the cool chamber of roses looking toward the north and the eternal mountains and found her stringing jade and crystal and amber on a fine golden cord, while ladies sat about her plucking rose petals for paste of roses, and there was a sound of far music in the gardens and looking through the lattice he saw Siddhartha with his best and dearest cousin, the Prince Ananda, shooting with bow and arrow in a wide meadow by the river, and Devadatta and another of the Sakya lords stood by, and the young men laughed and shouted, and their voices came small and clear with distance, so that the heart of the King exulted and he triumphed as he seated himself on the golden and peacock cushions, dismissing the women. “We have conquered, lovely one!” he said, laughing kindly in his black beard. “What neither I nor all my sages could do your small wise hands have done, for in them the mother of his child holds my son’s heart. I knew—I foretold, it must be so, for he is loving and good and all the pieties of life hold him like bands of iron. You are content?” And she smiling.