“I hope so,” responded Denis readily.
“I am sure. There is a great banquet to-morrow. You will be there.”
“Would they ask me?”
“Why, of course; but—here, come this way,” and Carrbroke touched the other’s arm. “You are not going to dance, so let us talk—out here in the garden.”
Denis accompanied his friend out on to a wide terrace where there came to the ear the sound of the music still, and where there were the thousand scents of the flowers on that soft June night.
“The King sometimes walks here,” said the lad; “but he will not come to-night. I like this place. Yonder is the river. You have not a river like that?”
“Oh, we have the Seine.”
Carrbroke made a movement of dissent.
“They laugh at me here,” he said, “because I fish. Lord Hurst would have one always wearing one’s best and acting the courtier; but the King loves sport, and so do I. Let’s go this way, and enter the palace by another door. There will be supper soon, and one must eat.”
A moment before, Denis was beginning to think that the place was not so attractive after all, but the word supper seemed to accord well with his sensations.