And now it dawned upon him also that
he had never heard the least expression of love to him. But just
for the time he thought it better to say nothing on either point.
'Does the king wander like this every night?' he asked.
'Every night,' answered Irene, shaking her head mournfully. 'That
is why I never go to bed at night. He is better during the day -
a little, and then I sleep - in the dressing room there, to be with
him in a moment if he should call me. It is so sad he should have
only me and not my mamma! A princess is nothing to a queen!'
'I wish he would like me,' said Curdie, 'for then I might watch by
him at night, and let you go to bed, Princess.'
'Don't you know then?' returned Irene, in wonder. 'How was it you
came? Ah! You said my grandmother sent you. But I thought you
knew that he wanted you.'
And again she opened wide her blue stars.
'Not I,' said Curdie, also bewildered, but very glad.
'He used to be constantly saying - he was not so ill then as he is
now - that he wished he had you about him.'
'And I never to know it!' said Curdie, with displeasure.
'The master of the horse told papa's own secretary that he had
written to the miner-general to find you and send you up; but the
miner-general wrote back to the master of the horse, and he told
the secretary, and the secretary told my father, that they had
searched every mine in the kingdom and could hear nothing of you.
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