"What are you so cross about?" Gerald was quite calm. "You said
you'd be invisible and you are."
"I'm not."
"You are really. Look in the glass."
"I'm not; I can't be."
"Look in the glass," Gerald repeated, quite unmoved.
"Let go, then," she said.
Gerald did, and the moment he had done so he found it impossible
to believe that he really had been holding invisible hands.
"You're just pretending not to see me," said the Princess anxiously,
"aren't you? Do say you are. You've had your joke with me. Don't
keep it up. I don't like it."
"On our sacred word of honour," said Gerald, "you're still invisible.
There was a silence. Then, "Come," said the Princess. "I'll let you
out, and you can go. I'm tired of playing with you."
They followed her voice to the door, and through it, and along the
little passage into the hall. No one said anything. Everyone felt
very uncomfortable.
"Let's get out of this," whispered Jimmy as they got to the end of
the hall.
But the voice of the Princess said: "Come out this way; it's quicker.
I think you're perfectly hateful. I'm sorry I ever played with you.
Mother always told me not to play with strange children."
A door abruptly opened, though no hand was seen to touch it.
"Come through, can't you!" said the voice of the Princess.
It was a little ante-room, with long, narrow mirrors between its
long, narrow windows.
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