presence
to tabber her feet on the inlaid floor of the corridor, thence to return
smooth, sweet-tempered, and amiable; for between Charlotte and the Queen
there were temperamental differences which had to declare themselves or
find safety through emergency exits.

The Princess had no such difficulties with her father, for
imperturbability was not one of his characteristics, and
imperturbability was the one quality in a parent which the Princess
simply could not stand; it made her feel powerless; and to feel
powerless toward one's intellectual inferiors is, to certain
temperaments, maddening. Charlotte had long since been brought to
recognize that her mother, in her own dear way, was quite hopeless: but
she was able with astonishing ease to get upon her father's nerves and
to trouble his conscience; for while the Queen remained impervious to
all influences outside the conventions of her training and her habits,
the King was as open to new scruples of conscience as a sieve is to the
wind--fresh ideas rattled in his head like green peas in a
cullender--when he shook his head it seemed to shake them about, and all
the larger ones came uppermost; and the Princess Charlotte had in recent
years acquired a habit of entangling her father, with the most engaging
simplicity, in moral problems for which constitutional monarchy could
find no answer.

She was evidently interested in politics, and when of late the King,
wishing to check so dangerous a tendency, had sought to know the reason
why, she had answered with perfect frankness: "Max says" (for to her,
also, Max, the man born to inaction, had been talking), "Max says he is
not sure if he means to come to the throne. If he doesn't, it is just as
well I should know something of the business."

The young lady had a most disrespectful way of talking about the
monarchy as "the business," and did not say it as if in joke.

"Are you going to business to-day, papa?" was actually the phrase
uttered in all seriousness, which had met him one of the days when he
went down to open Parliament. But though she spoke thus gracelessly of
an important State function she attended it herself with grace, and
behaved well.

The Princess Charlotte had learned many things alien to her nature; but
she had never learned that correctitude of deportment which is supposed
to accompany all those born in the regal purple from the cradle to the
grave. She substituted for it, however, something much more