"Who is she?" queried the King, pushing hazardously on, now that the danger-point had been reached.
"Do you wish to meet her?"
Parental dignity was offended.
"That is a suggestion you ought not to make."
"Then, my dear father, why inquire after her? She and I suit each other: to you she is nothing."
"How long has this been going on?"
"We have lived together for five years."
The King recalled a phrase that he had recently heard authoritatively spoken—"a relationship of long standing. Morally, of course, that only makes the matter worse."
"H'm!" he said aloud. "You started early, I must say!"
"You, sir, at that age were already a father," said Max correctively.