“And why, pray, were not the rest of us included?” he asked.
Ruth began to laugh. “They did include the rest of us,” she answered. “What is the use of beating about the bush in this fashion? You've something to tell me, I hear. Say it.” And leaving Pontycroft to consider her suggestion Ruth ran up the steps and fled lightly over the carpet woven of white saxifrage and violets thickly strewn among the turf, to the bench under the big oak at the summit of the hill. Here she sat herself, opened her blush-rose sunshade and defiantly watched Pontycroft stroll towards her.
He followed. He stood, deliberating before her for a moment. Then, bending a knee:
“Your Royal Highness, will your Royal Highness accept the Crown of Altronde from the hands of the King's unworthy Ambassador?” he asked.
Ruth caught her breath.
“What do you mean?” she queried, in a most violent disappointment of surprise.
“Your gracious Majesty,” answered Pontycroft, “I mean,—that I am come all the way from Europe and from a certain small but not-to-be-sneezed-at Principality called Altronde in order to ask you to wear with King Bertram, the ermine and the purple.... If we must put it bluntly, the King implores you to share his throne, his heart and his crown.”
“Oh,” Ruth said, “how very absurd.”
“Not at all absurd,” said Pontycroft; he still knelt, one knee to earth.
“And he looks every inch Ambassador and not in the least ridiculous,” Ruth thought smiling to herself, “in this superlatively ridiculous posture.”