“I’ve sent a maid to inform her Majesty the luncheon is served, sir.”
Smith stood ready for his duties at the end of the table. Gorman noticed that three places had been laid.
“Mr. Donovan coming?” he asked.
“No, sir. Mr. Donovan scarcely feels well enough. I’m expecting Mr. Phillips, sir. He’s with her Majesty.”
“Ah,” said Gorman. “They may be late.”
They were late. A quarter of an hour late. Gorman guessed the reason at once. No formal announcement was made, but he felt certain that in the course of the morning they had arrived at a satisfactory understanding and were engaged to be married. Gorman felt satisfied that the Emperor’s plan for the Queen’s future was not quite hopeless.
Luncheon was a difficult meal for him. He did his best to keep up a conversation, but neither the Queen nor Phillips seemed capable of understanding what he said. If they answered him at all they said things which were totally irrelevant. For the most part they did not answer. They gazed at each other a good deal and Gorman detected Phillips trying to hold the Queen’s hand under the table. Philips dropped his fork three times. The Queen looked very pretty, much prettier than she had the night before when she was angry with von Moll.
Gorman, in spite of his cynicism, is a kind-hearted man. It gave him a great deal of pleasure to see a girl and a boy in a condition of almost delirious happiness. But he felt that they ought not to be entirely selfish. They intended, apparently, to go off after luncheon, to a distant part of the island, accompanied by Kalliope, whom they could not well shake off. Gorman did not want to be left alone all the afternoon.
“What about going to that cave?” he said. “I’d rather like to find out what von Moll was doing there yesterday.”
The Queen and Phillips looked at each other. They had done little less except look at each other since they came in to luncheon. But this time they looked with a new expression. Instead of fatuous felicity, their faces suggested disappointment.