"But they said that when he saw the strength of the bond between them shining in your father's face, he did not have the heart to set any more challenges, for the strength of his own love made him recognize what he saw. Certainly he gave them his blessing when they turned to him and asked for it; but he gave it to them in the creaking voice of an old, old man, and when he passed his hands over their heads, the hands were thin and gnarled."

The princess, who did not care for old people, said, "But what of the leaf and the apple?"

"Ah, that was an amazement among amazing things. They thought the old king would defy this last successful suitor by saying that the leaf and the apple were not what they must be, but any shining leaf and any bright, round apple, for how is anyone to tell if something no mortal hands has touched before be that thing or no?

But when your father took his tokens out of his pack and held them up for all to see, a strange blindness struck the company, as if their eyes had for the moment forgotten their work, or fled from the task of seeing. And they were dazed with this, with the betrayal of their own vision, and sank to their knees, and trembled, and did not know what had come to them, and only wished to return to their ordinary lives, and deal no more with marvels.

"But from out of their mazing they heard your father's laugh, and then there was a burst of flame that everyone saw, like a bonfire at Midsummer, blinding indeed if you look too closely, but a familiar kind of astonishment this was, one you understand and can turn away from. Everyone blinked, and in blinking their vision returned to them; and they looked around. The fire in the great fireplace had gone out; and it and the walls around it were blackened as by some great explosion, and the prince and the lady stood before that blackened hearth, now locked in each other's arms. And yet they had stood half across the wide court from each other before the blindness struck all those who watched."