Adrian said:
“Lady Helen has served the family real for over thirty years.”
Clara could barely talk.
“Do you… work here?”
Helen smiled.
“Yes.”
He came over.simo
“And for months I went through the peoples looking for women whose kindness would not disappear when no one observed them.”
Clara slowly denied with her head.
“I never knew it.”
“That was the purpose,” Helen replied.
Then Prince Adrian looked at the other candidates.
“Most people are kind when they want something. A title. Wealth. A crown.”
His voice hardened.
“But true character appears when a person believes that he has nothing to gain.”
The woman who had laughed the loudest of Clara suddenly stepped forward.
“This is unfair.”
They all turned.
He pointed to Clara.
“She had already been chosen before the test started!”
Adrian denied with his head.
“No.”
Then he looked at Clara.
“She was invited for her reputation. He passed the test for what he did today.”
The woman let out a mocking laugh.
“What did he do? He just stayed there.”
“No,” Adrian replied.
“She was repeatedly insulted and decided not to insult anyone in return.”
Clara looked down.
The prince continued.
“He could have left. I could have demanded a punishment. He could have humiliated those who humiliated her.”
Then he turned to Clara.
“But you didn’t do any of those things.”
Clara finally spoke.
“My mother always told me that someone else’s cruelty doesn’t have to become mine.”
The king smiled for the first time that day.
Adrian looked at her for several seconds.
Then he asked:
“What does the paper say?”
Clara had almost forgotten that she was still holding him.
He opened it again and read it out loud.
“Beauty changes. Wealth disappears. Titles can be taken away. Choose the person whose heart remains the same when no one is watching you.”
The silence filled the room.
Adrian smiled.
“My grandfather wrote that phrase fifty years ago.”
He put his hand in the golden box and took out a second bent note, hidden under the first.
Then he handed it to Clara.
