He had been so busy all these years trying to find the bright white light of his dreams that he had not noticed that his hair had gone gray long ago.
So the Cat let him in, and led him up the winding stair to the room where the Princess, very quiet, lay on her white bed waiting for death to come, for she was very tired.
The old King stumbled across the bar of moonlight on the floor, flung down a clanking wallet, and knelt by the bed in the deep shadow, saying:
"Oh, my dear own Princess, I have come at last."
"Is it really you?" she said, and gave him her hands in the shadow. I hoped it was Death"s foot-step I heard coming up the winding stair."
"Oh, did you hope for death," he cried, "while I was coming to you?"
"You were long in coming," said she, "and I was very tired."
"My beautiful dear Princess," he said, "you shall rest in my arms till you are not tired any more."
"My beautiful King," she said, "I am not tired any more now."
And then the Cat came in with the lamp, and they looked in each other"s eyes.
Instead of the beautiful Princess of his dreams the King saw a white, withered woman whose piteous eyes met his in a look of longing love. The Princess saw a bent, white-haired man, but love was in his eyes.
"_I_ don"t mind."
"_I_ don"t mind."
They both spoke together. And both thought they spoke the truth. But the truth was that both were horribly disappointed.
"Yet, all the same," said the King to himself, "old and withered as she is, she is more to me than the youngest and loveliest of all other Princesses."
"I don"t care if he _is_ gray," said the Princess to herself; "whatever he is, he"s the only possible one."
"Here"s a pretty kettle of fish!" said the Cat. "Why on earth didn"t you come before?"
"I came as soon as I could," said the King.
The Cat, walking about the room in an agitated way, kicked against the wallet the King had dropped.
"What"s this," she said crossly, rubbing her toes, for the wallet was hard, and she had hurt herself more than a little.
"Oh, that," said the King--"that"s just the steel bolts and hammers and things that my resolves to find the Princess turned into when I failed and never did find her. I never could bear to throw them away; I had a sort of feeling that they might be good for something, since they hurt me so much when they came to me. I thought perhaps I could batter down the doors of the Princess"s tower with them."
"They"re good for something better than that," said the Cat joyously.
She went away, and the two heard her hammering away below. Presently she staggered in with a great basket of white powder, and emptied it on the floor; then she went away for more.
The King helped her with the next basketful, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, for there were seven of them, and the heap of white powder stood up in the room as high as the King"s middle.
"That"s powder of pearls," said the Cat proudly. "Now, tell me, have you been a good King?"
"I have tried to be," said the white-haired King "I was a workhouse boy, and then I was apprenticed to a magician, who taught me how to make people happy. There was a revolution just at the time when I was put into the workhouse, and they had a Republic. And I worked my way up till they made me President."
"What became of the King in that revolution?"
"There wasn"t a King, only a Regent. They had him taught a trade, and he worked for his living. It was the worst punishment they could invent for him. There was a Princess, too, but she was hidden by a magician. I saw her once when she was trying to run away. She asked me to run too--to her nurse----"
Here his eyes met the Princess"s.
"Oh," she said, "that was you, was it?"
"Oh," said he, "then that was you!"
And they looked long and lovingly in each other"s faded eyes.
"Hurry up," said the Cat impatiently; "you were made President. And then----"
"Oh, why, then," said the King, "they thought it wouldn"t be any more dangerous or expensive to have a King than a President, and prettier at State shows--ermine, crown, and sceptre, and all that--prettier than frock-coat and spats. So I agreed."
"And do your people love you?" the Cat asked.
"I don"t know," said the King simply; "I love them----"
As he spoke there came a flutter and flicker of many thousand wings at the closed cas.e.m.e.nt. The Cat threw the window wide, and in swarmed a countless crowd of white pigeons.
"These are the blessings of your people," said the Cat.
The wings fluttered and flickered and fanned the heap of pearl dust on the floor till it burst into flame, and the flame rose up high and white and clear.
"Quick!" cried the Cat, "walk through it. Lead her through."
The old King gave his hand to his poor faded love, and raised her from her couch, and together they pa.s.sed through the clear fire made of her patience and self-sacrifice, his high resolve, and the blessings of his people. And they came out of that fire on the other side.
"Oh, love, how beautiful you are!" cried the King.
"Oh, my King, your face is the face of all my dreams!" cried the Princess.
And they put their arms round each other and cried for joy, because now they were both young and beautiful again.
The Cat cried for sympathy.
"And now we shall live happy ever after," said the Princess, putting her other arm round the Cat. "Dear p.u.s.s.y-nurse, do tell me, now it"s all over, who you really are."
"I give it up. Ask another," said the Cat.
But as she spoke she went herself through the fire, and on the other side came out--not one person, but eleven. She was, in fact, the Professor, the nurse, the palace butler, footman, housemaid, parlourmaid, between-maid, boots, scullion, boy in b.u.t.tons, as well as the rescued cat--all rolled into one!
"But we only used one part of ourselves at a time," they all said with one voice, "and I hope we were useful."
"You were a darling," said the Princess--"darlings, I mean. But who turned you all into exactly the p.u.s.s.y-nurse I wanted?"