Once on a Time Part 34

"I think it's even more beautiful," said Hyacinth.

"You mean those little white clouds? That was my idea putting those in. I thought you'd like them."

"I wondered what you did all day. Does it keep you very busy?"

"Oh," said Coronel, "I have time for singing."

"Why do you sing?"

"Because I am young and the forest is beautiful."

"I have been singing this morning, too."

"Why?" asked Coronel eagerly.

"Because the war with Barodia is over."

"Oh!" said Coronel, rather taken aback.

"That doesn't interest you. Yet if you were a Euralian----"

"But it interests me extremely. Let us admire the scene for a moment, while I think. Look, there is another of my little clouds."

Coronel wondered what would happen now. If the King were coming back, then Udo would be wanted no longer save as a suitor for Hyacinth's hand. If, then, he returned, it would show that---- But suppose he was still an animal? It was doubtful if he would go back to Araby as an animal. And then there was another possibility: perhaps he had never come to Euralia at all. Here were a lot of questions to be answered, and here next to him was one who could answer them. But he must go carefully.

"Ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine, a hundred," he said aloud.

"There, I've finished my thinking and you've finished your looking."

"And what have you decided?" smiled Hyacinth.

"Decided?" said Coronel, rather startled. "Oh, no, I wasn't deciding anything, I was just thinking. I was thinking about animals."

"So was I."

"How very curious, and also how wrong of you. You were supposed to be admiring my clouds. What sort of animals were you thinking about?"

"Oh--all sorts."

"I was thinking about rabbits. Do you care for rabbits at all?"

"Not very much."

"Neither do I. They're so loppity. Do you like lions?"

"I think their tails are rather silly," said Hyacinth.

"Yes, perhaps they are. Now--a woolly lamb."

"I am not very fond of woolly lambs just now."

"No? Well, they're not very interesting. It's a funny thing," he went on casually, trying to steal a glance at her, "that we should be talking about those three animals, because I once met somebody who was a mixture of all three together at the same time."

"So did I," said Hyacinth gravely.

But he saw her mouth trembling, and suddenly she turned round and caught his eye, and then they burst out laughing together.

"Poor Udo," said Coronel; "and how is he looking now?"

"He is all right again now."

"All right again? Then why isn't he---- But I'm very glad he isn't."

"I didn't like him," said Hyacinth, blushing a little. And then she went on bravely, "But I think he found he didn't like me first."

"He wants humouring," said Coronel. "It's my business to humour him, it isn't yours."

Hyacinth looked at him with a new interest.

"Now I know who you are," she said. "He talked about you once."

"What did he say?" asked Coronel, obviously dying to know.

"He said you were good at poetry."

Coronel was a little disappointed. He would have preferred Hyacinth to have been told that he was good at dragons. However, they had met now and it did not matter.

"Princess," he said suddenly, "I expect you wonder what I am doing here. I came to see if Prince Udo was in need of help, and also to see if you were in need of help. Prince Udo was my friend, but if he has not been a friend of yours, then he is no longer a friend of mine.

Tell me what has been happening here, and then tell me if in any way I can help you."

"You called me Hyacinth yesterday," she said, "and it is still my name."

"Hyacinth," said Coronel, taking her hand, "tell me if you want me at all."

"Thank you, Coronel. You see, Coronel, it's like this." And sitting beneath Wiggs's veteran of the forest, with Coronel lying at her feet, she told him everything.

"It seems easy enough," he said when she had finished. "You want Udo pushed out and the Countess put in her place. I can do the one while you do the other."

"Yes, but how do I push Prince Udo out?"

"That's what _I'm_ going to do."

"Yes, but, Coronel dear, if I could put the Countess in her place, shouldn't I have done it a long time ago? I don't think you quite know the sort of person she is. And I don't quite know what her place is either, which makes it rather had to put her into it. You see, I don't think I told you that--that Father is rather fond of her."

"I thought you said Udo was."

"They both are."

"Then how simple. We simply kill Udo, and--and--well, anyhow, there's one part of it done."