A PREVIOUS ENGAGEMENT
"Well, my dear Court Godmother," began the Queen, as she sank on an ivory and cloth-of-gold settee in her private Cabinet, and cooled her somewhat heated face with a jewelled ostrich-feathered fan, "I had better tell you frankly that I think both you and that designing little adventuress have behaved in a very underhand way in this business—a way that I naturally resent. Mirliflor, as you very well know, came here on darling Edna's account, and you deliberately threw that Miss Heritage in his way—I haven't the least doubt you told her who he really was!"
"That," said the Fairy, "is just what I did not do. It was part of the test I put to her. She still has no idea that he is more than a student."
"Well, you egged her on to set her cap at him, and if he cares for her at all it can be no more than a passing fancy. I cannot be a party to letting the poor, dear young fellow be entrapped into a mésalliance to please you, and I shall see that she is sent back to England at once, as, but for you, she would have been long before this."
"I don't want to lose my temper with you if I can help it," said the Fairy, with an ominous flush on her peaked old nose, "because I've been through a good deal as it is this morning, and I'm feeling very far from well in consequence. But you had better understand that Lady Daphne is not going to be sent back to England—she is going with Mirliflor and me to Clairdelune, and we shall start immediately."
"You are at liberty to go where you please, but Miss Heritage will certainly not leave the Palace except to return to her own country."
"And I tell you I intend to take her to Clairdelune with me, and you are powerless to prevent it."
"Indeed?" said the Queen, in high wrath. "Answer me this: Am I Queen of Märchenland, or am I not?"
"You are not!" retorted the Fairy, before she could prevent herself, for the opening was really too tempting. She had not meant to go so far, but, having started, she proceeded to enlighten the Queen as to her title, and the very slender evidence on which it was based.
"I don't believe a single word of it!" declared Queen Selina, as defiantly as if this were the fact. "It's a wicked plot to set up my own governess as a pretender, but there's a very short way of settling that! I shall send for the Marshal"—and she made a movement towards a handbell of exquisitely engraved crystal with a sapphire tongue. "I shall tell him what you have dared to say, and have you and that wretched girl arrested as traitors!"