And meanwhile the Prince of Schnapps-Wasser had arrived; and Max, instead of pursuing his own love-affair, ought to have been busy entertaining him.
The first meeting between Charlotte and her suitor had been tactfully arranged; they had met riding to a review of troops in the great Field of Mars which occupied a central space in the largest of the royal parks. The Princess had a healthy taste for riding in thoroughly cold weather; she also particularly disliked to be in a carriage when those round her were on horseback; and so, by following her own taste, when the Prince met her she was looking her very best. Down a white-frosted avenue of lindens she and her escort came trotting to the saluting-point; and there, once more in his sky-blue with its sable and silver trimmings, the Prince was presented, and opening upon her mild blue eyes that looked curiously light in his bronzed and ruddy countenance, with dutiful promptness he fell in love with her.
By a little quiet maneuvering and attendance to other matters the King left them side by side for a while. Troops stood massed in the distance waiting the signal to advance.
"Do you like soldiers?" inquired the Prince.
"It rather depends upon the uniform," replied Charlotte.
"Oh! Do you like mine?"
She looked at it, and smiled; for there were no sky-blue tunics in Jingalo; and such cerulean tones on a man were to her eyes a little incongruous.
"It would be rather trying to some complexions," she observed. "But you look very well in it."
"Ah! I have been abroad," he explained. "That has given me the colors of a Red Indian."
"You look just as if you had dropped from the sky," she said, smiling still at him.