He leaned back in the cushioned seat and watched the silver shine of the prow delicately peering out its way among the shadowy islands; lay so still and absorbed that he did not know which way they went nor what his gondolier inquired of him, and presently realized without surprise that the Princess was speaking to him.
He felt her first, warm and friendlily, and then he heard her laughing.
He knew she was the Princess though she had no form or likeness.
"But which are you ?" he whispered to the laughter.
"The right one." "The one who stayed or the one who ran away ?" "Oh, if you don't know by this time! I have come to take you to the House." "Are you the one who was always there ?" "The Lovely Lady; there was never any other." "And shall I go there as I used ?" asked Peter, "and be happy there ?" "You are free to go; do you not feel it ?" "Oh, here--I feel many things.

I am just beginning to understand how I came to lose the way to it." "Are you so sure ?" "Quite." Peter's new-found certainty was strong in him.

"I made the mistake of thinking that the House was the House of Love, and it is really the House of Beauty.

I thought if I found the one to love, I should live in it forever.

But now that I have found the way back to it I see that was a mistake." "How did you find it ?" "Well, there is a girl here----" "Ah!" said the Princess.
"She is young," Peter explained; "she looks at things the way I used to, and that somehow brought me around to the starting-point again." "I see," said the Princess; the look she turned on him was full of a strange, secret intelligence which as he returned it without knowing what it was about, afforded Peter the greatest satisfaction.