He followed the secretly delighted servant out to a smart dogcart, and Sir Gilbert Lawthorn’s fat coachman meekly drew a heavy barouche and two fat horses out of the way of the royal conveyance.
It was with a slight sense of embarrassment that Alistair entered the pleasant dwelling in which the Duke of Gloucester and his wife were able to enjoy some of the pleasures of English home life. But his uneasiness was quickly dispelled by the reception he found waiting for him. The Prince himself sprang up from a lounge chair in the bright little hall, and grasped him cordially by the hand, exclaiming as he did so:
“Ada, my dear, here is my old chum, Alistair Stuart.”
A woman some years younger than her husband, with a face in which womanly grace and keen intelligence were harmoniously united, rose from the midst of a group of small children, and offered her hand with equal friendliness.
“I am so glad you have come. I have heard so much about you from Bertie that I hope you will let me treat you as an old friend. Do you like children?”
It was evident that children liked Alistair, for almost before he had sat down two youngsters of five or six, in white sailors’ suits, were romping round him, while a small girl of three, safely sheltered by her mother’s skirts, regarded him with grave but friendly curiosity.
“I know something about you,” the elder boy said presently, with an amusing note of condescension in his voice. “You used to go fishing with father when he was a boy.”
Alistair remembered the unfortunate letter he had sent to the Legitimist bazaar, and was ashamed.
The tactful Princess gave him no time to indulge in such thoughts. She poured him out a cup of tea, and bade her eldest son carry a plate of toast to the visitor—an order which he obeyed with an evident sense that he was conferring a considerable favour.
Lord Alistair was not long in awakening in the mind of the Duchess of Gloucester the same feeling that he awakened in most good women—a regret that such a life should be running to waste, and a desire to save him. It happened that the Duchess had literary tastes, she had heard of Stuart’s poems, and she engaged him in conversation on that ground.