'Oh, no, I didn't mean that—I am sure I am very glad . . .'
'Very well, then, we will be friends; and now tell me what you were going to say.'
'I have forgotten—what was I saying?'
'You were telling me about something you had written at school.'
'Oh, yes, I remember. I did a little play for the girls to act just before we left.'
'What was it about—what was it called?'
'It was not original—it was an adaptation of Tennyson's ballad of King Cophetua. You know Miss Gould—she played the King; and Miss Scully, she played the beggar-maid. But, of course, the whole thing was very childish.'
At this moment a figure in knee-breeches and flesh-coloured stockings was seen waving a wand at the far end of the room. He was the usher clearing the way for the viceregal procession.
The first to appear were the A.D.C.'s. They were followed by the Medical Department, by the Private Secretary, the Military Private Secretary, the Assistant Under Secretaries, by the Gentlemen in Waiting, the Master of the Horse, the Dean of the Chapel Royal, the Chamberlain, the Gentleman Usher, the Comptroller, the State Steward, walking with a wand, like a doge in an opera bouffe; then came another secretary, and another band of the underlings who flock about this mock court. And then came a heavy-built, red-bearded man, who carried, as one might a baby, a huge gilt sword in his fat hands. He was followed by their Excellencies. The long, maroon-coloured breeches preserved their usual disconsolateness, the teeth and diamonds retained their splendour, and the train—many yards of azure blue richest Duchesse satin, embroidered with large bouquets of silver lily of the valley, and trimmed with plumes of azure blue ostrich feathers, and bunches of silver coral—was upheld by two tiny children who tottered beneath its enormous weight. Then another batch of A.D.C.'s-in-Waiting, the ladies of the viceregal family: their Excellencies' guests and the ladies in attendance—placed according to their personal precedence—brought up the rear of the procession.
'Doesn't real, actual life sometimes appear to you, Miss Barton, more distorted and unreal than a dream? I know it does to me. The spectacle we have just witnessed was a part of the ages that believed in the godhead of Christ and the divine right of Kings; but it seems to me strange that such barbarities should be permitted to loiter.'