The Honourable John Ruffin did not let his surprise be seen; he greeted his royal guest civilly and sat down. Pollyooly questioned him closely and with genuine interest about his successes and reverses on the links. Then the Honourable John Ruffin observed that his royal guest was flushed; then he discovered that Pollyooly was entertaining him in a fashion at once negligent and drastic: she made no effort to include him in their talk, but she was watching him with the eye of a lynx and giving him a lesson in table manners with the coldest serenity.
"What is the matter with our royal guest exactly?" said the Honourable John Ruffin presently.
"He is so hard to teach," said Pollyooly plaintively. "You'd be surprised. I keep telling him not to eat like a pig; and for about four mouthfuls he doesn't. Then he forgets all about it; and I have to begin all over again."
The guilty flush deepened in the cheeks of the prince.
"You must give it time to sink in. He's not used to learning things; he has been so neglected," said the Honourable John Ruffin with a hospitable desire to make things easier for her royal guest.
Pollyooly shook her head doubtfully, and frowned sadly upon the prince.
"It would take weeks and weeks; and I don't really ever see him at meals," she said.
"Never mind: do what you can when you get the chance," said the Honourable John Ruffin in a heartening tone.
"That's what I must do," said Pollyooly; but there was no great hopefulness in her voice.
Sadly she handed a plate of cake to Prince Adalbert. There was a sudden gleam in his small, but Hohenzollern, eye, and in one swift gesture he took, or rather, to be exact, grabbed a slice, and thrust a corner of it into his mouth.