What
would you like?" she asked Kathleen.
"Roast chicken," said Kathleen, without hesitation.
The pinky Princess cut a slice of bread and laid it on a dish.
"There you are," she said, "roast chicken. Shall I carve it, or will
you?"
"You, please," said Kathleen, and received a piece of dry bread on
a plate.
"Green peas?" asked the Princess, cut a piece of cheese and laid it
beside the bread.
Kathleen began to eat the bread, cutting it up with knife and fork
as you would eat chicken. It was no use owning that she didn't see
any chicken and peas, or anything but cheese and dry bread,
because that would be owning that she had some dreadful secret
fault.
"If I have, it is a secret, even from me," she told herself.
The others asked for roast beef and cabbage and got it, she
supposed, though to her it only looked like dry bread and Dutch
cheese.
"I do wonder what my dreadful secret fault is," she thought, as the
Princess remarked that, as for her, she could fancy a slice of roast
peacock. "This one, she added, lifting a second mouthful of dry
bread on her fork, "is quite delicious."
"It's a game, isn't it?" asked Jimmy suddenly.
"What's a game?" asked the Princess, frowning.
"Pretending it's beef the bread and cheese, I mean."
"A game? But it is beef. Look at it," said the Princess, opening her
eyes very wide.
"Yes, of course," said Jimmy feebly.
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