Her feet stopped at last, and she blinked and looked up. Near the edge of the garden, near the great outer wall of the palace, was a quiet pool with a few trees close around it, so that much of the water stood in shadow wherever the sun stood in the sky. There was a small white marble bench under one of the trees, pushed close enough that a sitter might lean comfortably against the broad bole behind him. Aside from the bench there was no other ornament; as the palace gardens went, it was almost wild, for the grass was allowed to grow a little shaggy before it was cut back, and wildflowers grew here occasionally; and were undisturbed. The Princess had discovered this spot—for no one else seemed to come here but the occasional gardener and his clippers—about a year ago; a little before Prince Aliyander had ridden into their lives. Since that riding, their lives had changed, and she had come here more and more often, to be quiet and alone, if only for a little time.
Now she stood at the brink of the pond, the strange necklace clutched in her unwilling fingers, and closed her eyes. She took a few long breaths, hoping that the cool peacefulness of this place would somehow help even this trouble. She did not want to wear this necklace, to place it around her throat; she felt that the strange jewels would … strangle her, stop her breath … till she breathed in the same rhythm as Aliyander, and as her poor brother.
Her trembling stopped; the hand with the necklace dropped a few inches. She felt better. But as soon as she opened her eyes, she would see those terrible cloudy stones again. She raised her chin. At least the first thing she would see was the quiet water. She began to open her eyes: and then a great croak bellowed from, it seemed, a place just beside her feet; and her overtaxed nerves broke out in a sharp “Oh,” and she leaped away from the sound. As she leaped, her fingers opened, and the necklace dropped with the softest splash, a lingering and caressing sound, and disappeared under the water.
Her first thought was relief that the stones no longer held and threatened her; and then she remembered Aliyander, and her heart shrank within her. She remembered his look when she had refused his gift; and the sound of his voice when he hoped she would wear it upon her return to the Hall—where he was even now awaiting her. She dared not face him without it round her neck; and he would never believe in this accident. And, indeed, if she had cared for the thing, she would have pulled it to her instead of loosing it in her alarm.
She knelt at the edge of the pool and looked in; but while the water seemed clear, and the sunlight penetrated a long way, still she could not see the bottom, but only a misty greyness that drowned at last to utter black. “Oh dear,” she whispered. “I must get it back. But how?”
“Well,” said a voice diffidently, “I think I could probably fetch it for you.”
She had forgotten the noise that had startled her. The voice came from very low down; she was kneeling with her hands so near the pool’s edge that her fingertips were lightly brushed by the water’s smallest ripples. She turned her head and looked down still farther; and sitting on the bank at her side she saw one of the largest frogs she had ever seen. She did not even think to be startled. “It was rather my fault anyway,” added the frog.
“Oh—could you?” she said. She hardly thought of the phenomenon of a frog that talked; her mind was taken up with wishing to have the necklace back, and reluctance to see and touch it again. Here was one part of her problem solved; the medium of the solution did not matter to her.
The frog said no more, but dived into the water with scarcely more noise than the necklace had made in falling; in what seemed only a moment its green head emerged again, with two of the round stones in its wide mouth. It clambered back onto the bank, getting entangled in the trailing necklace as it did so. A frog is a silly creature, and this one looked absurd, with a king’s ransom of smooth heavy jewels twisted round its squat figure; but she did not think of this. She reached out to help, and it wasn’t till she had Aliyander’s gift in her hands again that she noticed the change.
The stones were as large and round and perfect as they had been before; but the weird creamy light of them was gone. They lay dim and grey and quiet against her palm, as cool as the water of the pond, and strengthless.
Such was her relief and pleasure that she sprang to her feet, spreading the necklace to its fullest extent and turning it this way and that in the sunlight, to be certain of what she saw; and she forgot even to thank the frog, still sitting patiently on the bank where she had rescued it from the binding necklace.
“Excuse me,” it said at last, and then she remembered it, and looked down and said, “Oh, thank you,” with such a bright and glowing look that it might move even a frog’s cold heart.
“You’re quite welcome, I’m sure,” said the frog mechanically. “But I wonder if I might ask you a favor.”
“Certainly. Anything.” Even facing Aliyander seemed less dreadful, now the necklace was quenched: she felt that perhaps he could be resisted. Her joy made her silly; it was the first time anything of Aliyander’s making had missed its mark, and for a moment she had no thoughts for the struggle ahead, but only for the present victory. Perhaps even the Crown Prince could be saved.…
“Would you let me live with you at the palace for a little time?”
Her wild thoughts halted for a moment, and she looked down bewildered at the frog. What would a frog want with a palace? For that matter—as if she had only just noticed it—why did this frog talk?
“I find this pool rather dull,” said the frog fastidiously, as if this were an explanation.
She hesitated, dropping her hands again, but this time the stones hung limply, hiding in a fold of her wide skirts. She had told the frog, “Certainly, anything”; and her father had brought her up to understand that she must always keep her word, the more so because as Princess there was no one who could force her to. “Very well,” she said at last. “If you wish it.” And she realized after she spoke that part of her hesitation was reluctance that anything, even a frog, should see her palace, her family, now; it would hurt her. But she had given her word, and there could be no harm in a frog.
“Thank you,” said the frog gravely, and with surprising dignity for a small green thing with long thin flipper-footed legs and popping eyes.
There was a pause, and then she said, “I—er—I think I should go back now. Will you be along later or—?”