Several times she had tried, as a pastime, to teach the dog some tricks; but she soon gave it up, for he always inspired her with a kind of awe. He was such a knowing kind of a cur, that he invariably seemed to read all her thoughts within her brain, and, winking at her, did the very thing she wanted him to do, before she had even tried to teach him the trick. Then, as he saw her open her eyes wonderingly, he would look at her, grinning, as if he were making fun of her; or else he sniffed at her in a patronising kind of way, as if he would say:
"Pooh! what a very silly kind of girl you are. Couldn't you, a human being, think of something better than that?"
It happened one day that, as they sat opposite each other, looking into each other's eyes--he as quiet as a stone dog on a gate, she with her tapering fingers interlocked, twirling her thumbs as a means of passing her time--the Princess was thinking of her many rejected suitors, whose hearts she had broken; even of the last one, the short, squat man, with sturdy limbs, large hands and feet, a shaggy head and huge ears. And she sighed, for though he was much more of a Satyr than like her Hyperean father, still he was a man.
Thereupon, she looked at the cur, with its sturdy limbs, its shaggy head and huge ears; and she sighed again. The dog winked at her.
"Cur," she said to herself, "you are ugly enough; still, if you were a man I think I could fall in love with you."
The cur stood on his hind legs, his head a little on one side; there was a knowing, impudent look in his eyes. Then he uttered a kind of doggish laugh, something between a whine and a bark; then, after showing his teeth in a grinning kind of way, he licked his chops at her sneeringly.
The words of her last suitor were just then ringing in her ears. She looked at the cur in amazement, for she almost fancied he had uttered those selfsame words.
The cur was evidently mocking her, as he rolled his shaggy head about, and gloated at her just as her last suitor had done. Thereupon, she blushed deeply, and covering her face with her hands, she burst into tears.
The poor dog thereupon came to lick the tears that oozed through her fingers, so that she felt somewhat comforted by the affection which this poor mongrel showed her.