David repressed a groan, and hastily cast about in his mind for a decent pretext for flight. “I assure you that it greatly relieves me to find you so courteously magnanimous,” he said. “I merely yielded to the playful impulse of the moment; and as your daughter has so kindly told you, I made haste thereafter to repair my error, when its possible misinterpretation occurred to me.” He bowed again, in response to the other’s solemn genuflection, and looked toward the door.
“I should be pleased, sir,” Mr. Skinner said, “if you would honour us by remaining to luncheon.”
“Ah, I should have liked that so much,” answered David, with fervour, “but unhappily I have an engagement at Marlborough House. It will be no end of a bore, but it can’t be helped. An invitation there, you know, is equivalent to a command. That is one of the drawbacks of a monarchy--but of course every system has its weak points.”
“That is a generalisation,” returned Mr. Skinner, “to which I am not prepared to give unmeasured adhesion. I will explain to you, sir, briefly, the reasons which dictate my hesitation to entirely----”
“I’m afraid, Mr. Skinner, that I must tear myself away,” put in David, anxiously consulting his watch. “The Prince never forgives a fellow being late. He has to live so much on a time-table himself, you know, forever catching trains, and changing his uniforms, and turning up at the exact minute all over the place, laying corner-stones, and opening docks and unveiling statues, and so on, that it makes him intolerant of other people’s lapses. And he’s got a fearful memory for that sort of thing.”
“I assume that you speak of the Heir Apparent,” commented the other. “Am I to understand that you live in a state of personal subjection--that a nobleman in your position, for example, contemplates with apprehension the contingency of causing even the most trivial and transitory displeasure to the personage alluded to?”
“Apprehension, my dear sir? Positive horror! Ah, you little know the reality! Thoughtless people see us from the outside, and they lightly imagine that our lives are one ceaseless round of luxurious gaiety and gilded pleasure. They fancy that to have titles, to bear hereditary distinctions, to fill high places at Court, must be the sum of human happiness. Of course, I suppose we do have a better time than the average, but we pay a price for it. We smile, it is true, but there is always a shudder beneath the smile. A mere breath, a suspicion, the veriest paltry whim of royal disfavour, and we might better never have been born! And so,” he finished with an uneasy graciousness, “you will understand my abrupt leavetaking now.”