Now in
her land it is a custom that the blood royal must not proclaim
itself, so she folded her hands and said gently:
"A place in the household of the King." And he, hearing that the
Waiting slave of his chief favorite Jayashri was dead, gave her
that place. So the Princess attended on those ladies, courteous
and obedient to all authority as beseemed her royalty, and she
braided her bright hair so that it hid the little crowns which
the Princesses of her House must wear always in token of their
rank, and every day her patience strengthened.
Sometimes the King, carelessly desiring her laughing face and sad
eyes, would send for her to wile away an hour, and he would say;
"Dance, little slave, and tell me stories of the far countries.
You quite unlike my Women, doubtless because you are a slave."
And she thought - "No, but because I am a Princess," - but this
she did not say. She laughed and told him the most marvellous
stories in the world until he laid his head upon her warm bosom,
dreaming awake.
There were stories of the great Himalayan solitudes where in the
winter nights the white tiger stares at the witches' dance of the
Northern Lights dazzled by the hurtling of their myriad spears.
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