"Yes; that is just the point," said I: "he declined them."
Frederick took a fresh cigar and lit it carefully, blowing the smoke in tiny rings to the ceiling.
"I think I understand now," he said. "You will decline our offer because it necessitates the restoration now, of Hugo's descendants, to the Family Roll?"
I bowed in silence.
"It's a great pity," he said, sadly. "Otherwise, if Hugo had, in effect, never been disinherited and if the legitimacy of his descendants had been specifically preserved by Royal Decree, you would accept our offer?"
"Yes," said I—"or, at least, I would give it serious consideration," I added with a laugh.
The King turned slowly and, for a space, kept his eyes fixed steadily on my face, as though searching there for an answer to something about which his mind was undecided. Have you ever had a monarch or one high in authority look at you so? If you have, you are likely to remember it many days.
Then he arose abruptly and, crossing to a large vault built in a far corner, returned with a heavy black box curiously bound with brass and inlaid with silver. Placing it on the table between us, he took from his watch chain a small antique key and pushing it, with a queer side-motion, into the lock, it opened with a sharp snap, and he threw back the lid.
"I wonder," said he, as he lifted out a thick leather-covered book with heavy metal hinges, "if there are many Americans whom it would be so difficult to persuade to accept a royal title?"
"I fancy it would be much the same with all the truly representative old American families," said I.