Part 38 (1/2)
The royal coach had already borne its occupants along two miles of the route; and continued exercise was making them warm.
”Good Heavens!” exclaimed the King, ”it's very stuffy in here; I feel as if I were in a furnace. Why did you ask to have the windows closed, my dear?”
”It makes one feel so much safer,” said the Queen, keeping her stereotyped smile, and sweeping a bow as she spoke.
”Safer from what?” Here his Majesty responded to a fresh burst of cheers.
”Accidents,” replied his consort; ”one never knows.”
”Gla.s.s, my dear, does not protect one from the accidents of Kings. Gla.s.s can't stop bullets, you know.”
”I didn't mean that sort of accident; and I wish you wouldn't talk about them just now.”
”You always take out an umbrella when you don't want it to rain; and if one talks about accidents then they don't happen. At least that has always been my experience. What sort of accident do you mean?”
”Dust, and microbes, and infection, and all that sort of thing. There must be a lot of it about in so large a crowd; I wonder how many people with measles.”
”What an idea!” exclaimed the King: ”people with measles don't come out to see shows.”
”Oh, yes, they do,--nursemaids especially. They all catch it from each other in the public parks; at least so I've been told. And whenever I see a perambulator now, I think of it.”
”There are no perambulators here to-day,” said the King, ”so you needn't think about measles. Smallpox if you like; though it strikes me that all I have yet seen are remarkably healthy specimens--considering how many of them there are.” And he bowed to the healthy specimens as he spoke.
”Very enthusiastic,” murmured the Queen appreciatively.
”Yes; I wonder if presently they will be as enthusiastic about Max.”
”What do you mean?”
”Oh, nothing. I was only thinking ahead, in quite a general sort of way.
We seem lately to have become quite popular.”
”I think we have always been.”
”Yes, you have, my dear; about myself I was not so sure. Well, it's very gratifying to come upon it just now.”
His Majesty felt a little guilty, for he had not yet told the Queen of what lay ahead; it was so much better that she should not know beforehand what she would never be able to understand.
Then for a while they relapsed into silence, each attending to what Charlotte would have described as their ”business”--a carefully regulated succession of bows accompanied by a smile which never quite left off.
Presently the King spoke again. ”By the way, where has Charlotte gone to?”
”Well, I hardly know,” said the Queen. ”She wrote to me from her first address--that college place; but said she was going on elsewhere, and I thought you settled that we were to leave her alone.”
”I think she ought to have waited till to-morrow. As Max is away, she at least should have been here.”
”So I told her; but she said she had a very particular engagement which she must keep; and I could see that, relying upon your promise, she meant to have her own way, so I said nothing.”
”I hope they are going to like each other,” said the King, his thoughts carrying on to the meeting which was now near.
”She and the Prince? Oh, yes, I think there's no doubt about it.