"So be it, my dear," said the Queen, quietly. "Farewell! You will bring this little maid again? I had a daughter—you know. In Arcadia—once! 'Fiat voluntas Tua.'"
The last words were spoken very low and falteringly. The beloved Princess Louise, surnamed by her father La Consolatrice, had been taken away from her mother's eyes as with a stroke, only six weeks before.[[31]]
And for one minute Celia forgot dishonesty and Popery and everything else on the part of the exiled House, as she looked pityingly into the tear-dimmed eyes of the almost desolate mother. There were four graves at Westminster[[32]] beside the one at Chaillot, and the young man who stood beside the Queen was the last of her children: "the only son of his mother, and she was a widow!"[[33]]
And the verdict Celia whispered to her own heart at the close was—"Yes, England has done well—has done right. But oh, if it had not been necessary!"
"Chocolate!" announced Mr. Philip Ingram to himself, simultaneously with the presentation of himself at his sister's boudoir-door. "Patient, bring me a cup—there's a good soul. Why, how long is it before supper?"
"Scarcely two hours, I know," said Celia; "but I had very little dinner, and I am hungry."
"You dined on your coming interview with the Queen, did you? Well, how do you like her?"
"I like her face very much, and feel very sorry for her."
"You like her face!" repeated Philip, putting his hands in his pockets. "What a droll answer! Do you mean that you dislike her voice, or what part of her?"
"Nothing in that way. Philip, I wonder if there is a scrap of honesty left in the world!"