Monkley seemed to be sizing up the prince; then abruptly with an air of great cordiality he took his arm.
“Say, Prince, let’s go and find an ice. I guess you’re the man I’ve been looking for ever since I landed in England.”
They moved off together to find refreshment. Sylvia was left in the antechamber, which was filled with a most extraordinary crowd of people. There were young men with very pink cheeks who all wore white roses or white carnations in their buttonholes; there was a battered-looking woman with a wreath of laurel in her hair who suddenly began to declaim in a wailful voice. Everybody said, “Hush,” and tried to avoid catching his neighbor’s eye. At first, Sylvia decided that the lady must be a lunatic whom people had to humor, because her remarks had nothing to do with the reception and were not even intelligible; then she decided that she was a ventriloquist who was imitating a cat. An old gentleman in kilts was standing near her, and Sylvia remembered that once in France she had seen somebody dressed like that, who had danced in a tent; this lent color to the theory of their both being entertainers. The old gentleman asked the baron if he had the Gaelic, and the baron said he had not; whereupon the old gentleman sniffed very loudly, which made Sylvia feel rather uncomfortable, because, though she had not eaten garlic, she had eaten onions for lunch. Presently the old gentleman moved away and she asked the baron when he was going to begin his dance; the baron told her that he was the chief of a great Scottish clan and that he always dressed like that. A clergyman with two black-and-white dogs under his arms was walking about and protesting in a high voice that he couldn’t shake hands; and a lady in a Grecian tunic, standing near Sylvia, tried to explain to her in French that the dogs were descended from King Charles I. Sylvia wanted to tell her she spoke English, because she was sure something had gone wrong with the explanation, owing to the lady’s French; but she did not like to do so after Jimmy’s deliberate insistence upon her nationality.
Presently a very fussy woman with a long, stringy neck, bulging eyes, and arched fingers came into the antechamber and wanted to know who had not yet been presented to the Emperor. Sylvia looked round for Jimmy, but he was nowhere to be seen, and, being determined not to go away without entering the throne-room, she said loudly:
“Moi, je n’ai pas encore vu l’empereur.”
“Oh, the little darling!” trilled the fussy woman. “Venez avec moi, je vous présenterai moi-même.”
“How beautifully Miss Widgett speaks French!” somebody murmured, when Sylvia was being led into the throne-room. “It’s such a gift.”
Sylvia was very much impressed by a large orange flag nailed to the wall above the Emperor’s throne.
“Le drapeau impériale de Byzance,” Miss Widgett said. “Voyez-vous l’aigle avec deux têtes. Il était fait pour sa majesté impériale par le Société du roi Charles I de West London.”
“King Charles again,” Sylvia thought.