d past; and when he had gone a little further, turned
to take another look at her, and found, startled, that she too was
looking at him. There, at opposite ends of the long corridor, father and
daughter stood interrogatively at gaze, each feeling a little guilty,
each wondering what, at the denouement, the other would say. Then the
charming Charlotte blew him a kiss from her hand, and his Majesty did
likewise; and, off to the fulfilment of her destiny went the Princess;
and off to his fulfilment of her destiny went he; each quite sure in
their two different ways that they knew what was best for her.

III

The King found the Queen at her knitting, very placid and contented and
well pleased with herself, for she had just been giving Charlotte a mild
talking to. Charlotte had come home with adjectives in her mouth of
which the Queen did not approve, and with enthusiasms that went
riotously beyond bounds. She had talked of some Professor's translation
of a Greek play as "glorious"; and of the play itself--a play all about
expatriated women who, their proper husbands having been killed in a
siege, were forced to accept at the hands of their enemies husbands of a
less proper kind--she had talked of that play as "the most immense,
immortal, and modern thing in all drama."

"I told her," said the Queen, "that she was talking about what she
didn't understand; but she answered that she had seen it three times.
_I_ said, that to go and see the same play three times--especially a
play with murders in it--showed a morbid taste. She didn't seem to mind:
'Then I _am_ morbid,' was her reply. And when I said, 'That comes of
making friends with these intellectual women,' she only laughed at me. I
shan't let her go again, it is doing her harm; she has far too many
ideas, far too many: and where she picks them all up I'm sure I don't
know; she doesn't get them from me!"

And then the conversation--though Charlotte remained its subject--took
another turn, for the King put into his wife's hand the letter he had
received from the Prince of Schnapps-Wasser, and immediately her
comments began.

"He writes a nice hand," she said, "and expresses himself very well.
Speaks of writing a book on his travels; he must be clever. Well, at all
events, it's very evident that he means to come, and wants to. We must
ask him to send his photograph. I think, my dear, we have made a very
good choice, and Charlotte may consider herself very fortunate. Bu