"He is devoted to you."
"He must be to have put up with my whims for so many years."
"Have you many?"
"Quite a number."
"Then, be really interesting and tell me some."
"You must be prepared for terrible shocks, now listen: I am romantic, a fatal mishap in a king, one liable to lead him into all sorts of trouble."
"In what way?"
"Well, you know how a king is bound by rules and regulations, some dating from the stone age. I want to break them all, I want to establish precedents for royalty, such as the right to sneeze without a chamberlain to assist. And then, think of how much might be done to lighten the lives of those royalties who are not in the highest positions; the really worthy members who devote their lives to opening things, I don't mean boxes of sardines or anything like that, but hospitals, exhibitions, etc."
"There is, I am afraid, a certain flippancy in the air this morning; I shall catch it soon, if you continue."
"That would be terrible, Princess. Just imagine, if you can, the feelings of the staid members among my people, how shocked they would be to think that their monarch was ever natural. You see what cause there is for my whims."