ere Was a Fairy Prince and
Princess."]

"Once upon a time there was a fairy prince and princess, and a witch
had enchanted them and put them in a green forest, but had set a
watch-dog over Love--so that the poor Cupid with his bow and arrows
might not shoot at them, and they were told they might live and enjoy
the green wood and find what they could of sport and joy. But Cupid
laughed. 'As if,' he said, 'there is anything in a green wood of good
without me--and my shafts!' So while the watch-dog slept--it was a warm,
warm day in May, just such as this--he shot an arrow at the prince and
it entered his heart. Then he ran off laughing. 'That is enough for one
day,' he said. And the poor prince suffered and suffered because he was
wounded and the princess had not received a dart, too--and could not
feel for him."

"Was she not even sympathetic?" asked Theodora, and again there was that
catch in her breath.

"Yes, she was sympathetic," he continued, "but this was not enough for
the prince; he wanted her to be wounded, too."

"How very, very cruel of him," said Theodora.

"But men are cruel, and the prince was only a man, you know, although he
was in a green forest with a lovely princess."

"And what happened?" asked Theodora.

"Well, the watch-dog slept on, so that a friendly zephyr could come, and
it whispered to the prince: 'At the end of all these allees, which lead
into the future, there is only one thing, and that is Love; he bars
their gates. As soon as you start down one, no matter which, you will
find him, and when he sees your princess he will shoot an arrow at her,
too.'"

"Oh, then the princess of course never went down an allee," said
Theodora--and she smiled radiantly to hide how her heart was
beating--"did she?"

"The end of the story I do not know," said Lord Bracondale; "the fairy
who told it to me would not say what happened to them, only that the
prince was wounded, deeply wounded, with Love's arrow. Aren't you sorry
for the prince, beautiful princess?"

Theodora opened her blue parasol, although no ray of sunshine fell upon
her there. She was going through the first moment of this sort in her
life. She was quite unaccustomed to fencing, or to any intercourse with
men--especially men of his world. She understood this story had himself
and herself for hero and heroine; she felt she must continue the
badinage--anything to keep the tone as light as it could be, with all
these new emotions floodi