"You might ask Mamma," I replied. "But then, if I had, she would have more too wouldn't she?"
"That would be a pity. She is charming as she is. She must have married when almost a child."
"Did you come out here at this time of the morning to ask me about Mamma's marriage?" I threw at him. "Because, if that was your reason, I'd rather go in to my dolls."
"No, no," protested the Prince, in a hurry. "I came to talk about yourself."
I began to feel an attack of giggles coming on, but I stopped them by holding my breath, as you do for hiccoughs, and thinking about Job, which, if you can do it soon and solemnly enough, is quite a good preventive. I knew now exactly why Prince Dalmar-Kalm had dashed on his clothes at sight of me and come into the garden on an empty stomach. He had thought, if he could get me all alone for half an hour (which he'd often tried to do and never succeeded) he could find out a lot of things that he would like to know. Perhaps he felt it was impossible for anybody to be as young as I seem, so that was what he wanted to find out about first. If I wasn't, he would flirt; if I was, he would merely pump.
There wasn't much time to decide on a "course of action," as Mamma's lawyer in Denver says; but I put on my thinking-cap and tied it tight under my chin for a minute. "There's more fun to be had in playing with him than with dolls," I said to myself, "if I set about it in the right way. But what is the right way? I can't be bothered having him for my doll, because he'd take up too much time. Shall I give him to Maida? No, I'll lend him to Mamma to play with, so long as she plays the way I want her to, and doesn't get in earnest."
"What are you anxious to say about me that can't wait till breakfast?" I asked.
"Those men will be at breakfast," said he. "They are in the position of your couriers, yet they put themselves forward, as if on an equality with me. I do not find that conducive to conversation."
"Mamma asked Maida yesterday whether it was better to be an Austrian prince, or an English baronet?" said I. "Sir Ralph Moray's a baronet."