"Are you clean?" asks Dulce, with a charming smile, leaning over the railings to see them better as they draw closer.
"To confess a horrid truth, I don't believe we are," says Stephen Gower, glancing up at her, and regarding his rough shooting coat somewhat ruefully. "Will that admission exclude us from Paradise?"
"Dulce," says Dicky Browne, who is the second of the two figures, "I'm worn out. I've been walking all day, a thing I very seldom do; I have been firing off an unlimited number of cartridges, without, I am bound to confess—I am, as experience has doubtless taught you, a remarkably truthful person—without any very brilliant consequences, and I feel that very little more fatigue will be my death. Have compassion on us. We faint, we die; show mercy and give us some tea and some cake. You're awfully hungry, Gower, aren't you?"
"Well, not very," says Mr. Gower, too occupied in his contemplation of Dulce's charming face to be quite alive to what is so plainly expected of him.
"Oh, nonsense! He is tremendously hungry," says Dicky Browne. "Let us up, Dulce, and we will sit out there on the balcony, and won't soil anything. Except gore, there isn't much staining about us."
"But that is worse than anything," says Dulce with a shudder. "However, come up, and if you keep very far away, I daresay I shan't mind much."
"Hard conditions," says Gower, in a lower tone.
So tea is got for them again, and the children, who always seem to feel when plum-cake is to be had, come trooping noisily up the steps to join, uninvited, in the festivities.
Great content follows, and, indeed, all is peace until something said by the Boodie creates a confusion that sweeps calm to the winds. She has ensconced herself on Mr. Gower's knee, without saying so much as "by your leave" or "with your leave," and now, raising one soft little dimpled hand to his chin, turns his face towards her own, and for a full minute regards him with silent curiosity.
"Well, is your Highness satisfied?" says Gower, feeling amused.