vow; and you would not even look at my cake in the larder."

"Women are strange," said the King. "How do you know I did not look
at the cake?"

"I do know," she said as hurriedly as before. "And if I would not
tell you who I was, it was because I could not bear, on the other
hand, to extort from you a love you seemed so reluctant to endure;
until indeed it became of its own accord too strong even for the
purpose which brought you every week to the Ring. For I knew that
purpose, since all dwellers in Washington know why men go up the
hill with the new moon."

"But when my love did become too strong for my vow, and opened my
lips at last," said the King, "why did you run away?"

Viola said, "Had you not run away the week before? And now I have
answered all your questions."

"No," said the King, "not all. You haven't told me yet when you
first loved me."

Viola smiled and said, "I first stole barley sugar when my father
said This is for the other little girl over the way'; and I first
loved you when, seeing you had been too absent-minded to know that
Pepper had cast her shoes, I feared you were in love."

"But that was three minutes after we met!" cried the King.

"Was it as much as that!" said she.