“I do not,” said the Duchess, who still stood indignant in the centre of the room.
Nell could scarce speak, for her mouthful; but she replied gaily, with a French shrug, in imitation of the Duchess:
“Oh, very well! I have a solution. Let’s play sphinx, Sire.”
Charles looked up hopefully.
“Anything for peace,” he exclaimed. “How is’t?”
“Why,” explained Nell, with the philosophical air of a learned doctor, “some years before you and I thought much about the ways and means of this wicked world, your Majesty, the Sphinx spent her leisure asking people riddles; and if they could not answer, she ate them alive. Give me some of that turbot. Don’t stand on ceremony, Sire; for the Duchess is waiting.”
The King hastened to refill Nell’s plate.
“Thank you,” laughed the vixen; “that will do for now. Let the Duchess propound a riddle from the depths of her subtle brain; and if I do not fathom it upon the instant, Sire, ’t is the Duchess’s–not Nell’s–evening with the King.”
“Odsfish, a great stake!” cried Charles. He arose with a serio-comic air, much pleased at the turn things were taking.
“Don’t be too confident, madame,” ironically suggested the Duchess; “you are cleverer in making riddles than in solving them.”