"Well," said the Queen, "no engagement made under such circumstances can be binding, and you must break it off at once. Go and tell him that your Father and I refuse to hear of your engagement."
"It'll make him most awful ratty if I do," objected Clarence.
"What if it does? Clarence, you must get free. I'm extremely anxious that you should marry Miss Heritage before Mirliflor returns (if he does return) for her. It's most important, for your Sister's sake. Because, when he finds himself forsaken, he is sure to turn to Edna again. Now do you see?"
"I see," he replied lugubriously, "and I don't mind going to the Lake and trying to get the old boy to let me off—but I bet you he won't."
"Don't ask him anything. Simply inform him that your parents decline to allow such a match, and refer him to us."
"Perhaps that would be the neatest way out of it," he agreed. "Yes, I'll just tell him that—from a safe distance—and he can do what he jolly well pleases. But it won't be a pleasant job. What?"
It was some miles to the Crystal Lake, but he went on foot without any member of his suite in attendance, and in a plain cloak and slouched hat, which prevented him from being recognised as he passed through the streets of the Capital.
During his absence his Mother was engaged in long and anxious consultation with the King and Edna. "I'm surprised at Clarence," King Sidney had observed, "thought he knew his way about too well to be drawn into an entanglement of this kind!"
"He never would have been," said his mother, "if he hadn't had to choose between that and being held under water. And you can trust Clarence to make it clear that he would not be allowed to keep such a promise, even if he wanted to."
"If he marries any one," said the King, "it ought to be this Princess of Goldenenbergenland—he'll get money with her, and we want some rather badly."