It is time I attempted to describe this noble creature. But it is vain to seek to portray a great work of nature. Above all else I think she must be regarded as that. She was prodigal in beauty; imperious in the vividness of her challenge; splendid in the arresting candour of her dark and disdainful eyes. There was a compelling power before which the world of men and things was prone to yield; but there was pathos too in that valiant self-security, which knew so little yet exacted so much; and beyond all else there was the immemorial fascination of a luckless, intensely sentient being, who seemed in her own person to be the epitome of an entire sex at the dawn of the twentieth century.
One by one we paid our homage, and it was not rendered less by the romance of the circumstances.
"You are brave men!" she said in a voice wonderfully low and clear in quality. "We Sveltkes have known always how to esteem men of courage."
Coverdale, as the doyen of the party, took upon himself to speak for us. He held himself erect and bowed much too stiffly to pass muster as a courtier. But he had a kind of plain, almost rough, sincerity which atoned a little for his resolute absence of grace.
"If we are to have the privilege, ma'am," said the Chief Constable, "of making ourselves useful, I am sure we shall all feel very proud and honoured."
There is often something rather charming in a plain man's attempt at the ornate. So honourable an awkwardness caused the eyes of her Royal Highness to glow with humour and kindliness.
"Mais oui, mon cher, I know it well, les Anglais sont des hommes honnêtes." Suddenly she laughed quite charmingly, and enfolded the six of us in a glance of the highest benevolence, with which, doubtless, her favourite dogs and horses had often been indulged. "Do you know, there is something in les Anglais that I like much. Quiet fellows, eh, always a little bête, but so—so trustworthy. Yes, I like them much."
There was something soft and quaint and entirely captivating in the accent of her Royal Highness. The smile in her eyes was frankness itself.
"I hope, ma'am," said the Chief Constable, still labouring valiantly with his politeness, "that we shall deserve praise."
The Princess continued to smile. A very characteristic smile it was. A little girl admiring her array of dolls, or old Frederick of Prussia reviewing his regiment of giants, might have been expected to indulge in a very similar gesture. We were honest Englishmen, quiet fellows, a little bête, who were always to be trusted; and her naïveté was such, that it was bound to inform us of these facts.