"Oh, don't quote poetry to me!" begged the King. "I don't understand it."
"And I try not to," said the Queen. So Charlotte's quotation was ruled out of the discussion.
"Don't you think, my dear," persuaded her father, "that meeting him here, as it just so happens, will seem sufficiently accidental?"
"Not after we've waited for him all this time; not after I climbed up that spire and threw my cap at him without knowing it," said the Princess. "Oh, you don't know what that paper has been saying!" And she pointed to the bits.
The King stooped and began gathering them up.
"It's all nonsense, John," said the Queen. "Don't indulge her by paying any attention."
And at that renewed proof of her mother's imperviousness of mind Princess Charlotte ran out of the room.
"Leave her alone!" remarked the Queen, sure of her own sagacity, "she'll calm down. My belief is that she really likes him. I saw her looking at his photograph; it wasn't only once, either."
IV
Three days later the King and Queen of Jingalo were at home by special appointment to receive a call of ceremony. The streets of Bad-as-Bad were hung with flags—here and there of the two nationalities, side by side, their corners (delicate symbol!) tied together by a knot of white ribbon.