“He looks like some special litter,” Lady Something remarked.
“The rumour of her betrothal it seems is quite without foundation?”
“Prince Yousef and she are of an equal age!”
“She is interested in Yousef I’m inclined to believe; but the worst of life is, nearly everyone marches to a different tune,” the Archduchess replied.
“One hears of her nothing that isn’t agreeable.”
“Like her good mother, Queen Glory,” the Archduchess said, “one feels, of course, she’s all she should be.”
“Yes ... and even _more_!” she murmured, letting fall a curtsy to King William who had entered. He had been lunching at the Headquarters of the Girl Guides, and wore the uniform of a general.
“What is the acme of nastiness?” he paused of the English Ambassadress to enquire.
Lady Something turned paler than the white candytuft that is found on ruins. “Oh _la_, sir,” she stammered, “how should I know!”
The King looked the shrinking matron slowly up and down: “The supreme disgust----”
“Oh _la_, sir!” Lady Something stammered again.
But the King took pity on her evident confusion: “Tepid potatoes,” he answered, “on a stone-cold plate.”
“I trust the warmth of the girls, sir, compensated you for the coldness of the plates?” she ventured.
“The inspection, in the main, was satisfactory! Although I noticed that one or two of the guides, seemed inclined to lead astray,” the King replied, regarding Teddywegs, who was inquisitively sniffing his spurs.
“He’s strange yet to everything,” the Archduchess commented.
“They say she’s stupid, but I do not know that intellect is always a blessing!” the King declared, drooping his eyes to his abdomen, with an air of pensive modesty.
“Poor child, she writes she is tied to the shore, so that I suppose she is unable to leave dear England.”
“As was Andromeda!” the King sententiously exclaimed.... “She would have little, or maybe nothing, to wear,” he clairvoyantly went on: “I see her standing shivering, waiting for Yousef.... Chained by the leg, perhaps, exposed to the howling winds.”[3]
“Nonsense. She means to say she can’t get away yet on account of her engagements: that’s all.”
“After Cowes-week,” Lady Something put in, “she is due to pay a round of visits before joining her parents in the North.”