"Why, Gretchen, where are you going?"—noting the grey walking-dress, the grey hat, the sensible square-toed shoes.
"I am going to visit a sick nurse," replied her Highness, avoiding the other's eye.
"But shall you have time to dress for dinner?"
"That depends. Besides, the official dinners are a great bore." Her Highness came forward, caught the dark head of the English girl between her gloved hands, pressed it against her heart, bent and kissed it. "What a lovely girl you are, Betty! always unruffled, always even-tempered. You will grow old very gracefully."
"I hope so; but I do not want to grow old at all. Can't I go with you?"—eagerly.
"Impossible; etiquette demands your presence here to-night. If I am late my rank and my errand will be my excuse. What jolly times we used to have in that quaint old boarding-school in St. John's Wood! Do you remember how we went to your noble father's country place one Christmas? I went incognita. There was a children's party, and two boys had a fisticuff over you. Nobody noticed me those days. I was happy then." The princess frowned. It might have been the sign of repression of tears. Betty, with her head against the other's bosom, could not see. "I shall be lonely without you; for you can not stay on here for ever. If you could, it would be different. I shall miss you. Somehow you possess the faculty of calming me. I am so easily stirred into a passion; my temper is so surface-wise. Some day, however, I shall come to England and spend a whole month with you. Will not that be fine?"
"How melancholy your voice is!" cried Betty, trying without avail to remove her Highness' hands.
"No, no; I want to hold you just so. Perhaps I am sentimental to-night. I have all the moods, agreeable and disagreeable.… Do you love anybody?"
"Love anybody? What do you mean?"—rising in spite of the protesting hands. "Do I look as if I were in love with anybody?"
They searched each other's eyes.