Emma von der Tann knew that he had not intended saying that at all. Being a woman, she knew precisely what he had meant to say, and she discovered that she would very much have liked to hear him say it.
“Suppose,” said Barney, “that Peter’s soldiers run across us—what then?”
“They will take you back to Blentz, your majesty.”
“And you?”
“I do not think that they will dare lay hands on me, though it is possible that Peter might do so. He hates my father even more now than he did when the old king lived.”
“I wish,” said Mr. Custer, “that I had gone down after my guns. Why didn’t you tell me, in the first place, that I was a king, and that I might get you in trouble if you were found with me? Why, they may even take me for an emperor or a mikado—who knows? And then look at all the trouble we’d be in.”
Which was Barney’s way of humoring a maniac.
“And they might even shave off your beautiful beard.”
Which was the girl’s way.
“Do you think that you would like me better in the green wastebasket hat with the red roses?” asked Barney.