In Brief Authority

by F. Anstey

"She wasn't to blame, Mater," said Clarence, after Daphne had left the Hall. "It was all my fault. I sent her that message."

"It's very chivalrous of you, Clarence, to take the blame on yourself," replied his Mother; "but don't imagine you can deceive me. I know very well you are much too clever and wideawake to do anything so compromising. That girl is doing her best to entrap you into some rash promise. I've suspected it for some time."

"No, I don't think so, really, Mater. Just before you came in she was asking me to promise not to speak to her again, except in public."

"And didn't you see that was just her artful way of leading you on? But of course you did! As if you could fail to see through such an obvious trick as that."

Now Clarence came to think of it, it was pretty obvious. He shuddered to remember how very nearly he had been taken in by it. But the shrewdest man is liable to lose his head for the moment. Fortunately he had recovered his in time.

"Well, Mater," he said, "I wasn't born yesterday, you know. I flatter myself I'm up to most moves on the board. And you may depend upon it if she's had any designs on me—mind you, I don't say she has—but if she has, she sees now that they'll never come to anything. She's given me up as a hopeless proposition."

This statement was inspired less by any personal conviction than by the dread that without such reassurance his anxious Mother might dismiss Daphne on the spot.

Queen Selina did not dismiss Daphne, whose powers of keeping Ruby amused and the ladies-in-waiting in good humour were too valuable to be dispensed with unless it was absolutely necessary. But she was allowed to see in many ways that she had fallen from favour. One of these was she was no longer invited to take part in the daily drives, a deprivation which would alone have consoled her for much worse penalties.

And she was freed from any further importunities from the Crown Prince, who kept his side of the compact by maintaining a cold and lofty dignity. Clarence intended this to convey that his eyes were at last open to her designs, and that it would be useless for her to seek to beguile him any longer. But as Daphne was quite guiltless of any designs at all, she was merely grateful to him for leaving her in peace.

Queen Selina generally left it to the Marshal to direct her excursions, and he always rode beside the Royal coach. One afternoon he had conducted her and her eldest daughter by a road across a fertile plain dotted with pleasant villages and isolated farmhouses, towards the outlying spurs of a range of mountains.