The Queen would have returned a sharp answer, but the door opened noisily and the subject of their talk entered the room with an unsteady step and dropped into the chair with arms at the head of the table.
He wore a very rich hunting suit of violet velvet laced with silver; this was torn and muddy, his lawn shirt and his wrist ruffles were bloody, as were his hands and the sheaths of the long knives he wore thrust into his belt.
“Am I late?” he asked. “I had a mind not to come back at all. It was pleasant in the woods.”
The Queen rose with a glance of disgust for his attire and his condition; he had never yet appeared before her so soiled from the chase. And he was obviously intoxicated. She hesitated for a second, then rang the silver bell by her side and took her seat opposite to her grandson, at the end of the table.
Count Piper came quietly to his place between the King and Queen.
“There is much business for you to-day, sir,” he said.
“Business?” said Karl; he laughed, dragged at his napkin and sent over a glass.
The lackeys entered with the dinner and there was silence in the somber little room; both the Queen and Count Piper were looking covertly at the young King.
His appearance, even in his present dishevelment and intoxication, was most remarkable; he did not need his kingship to make him conspicuous—in any company, on any occasion, he would have been noticed.
He was then in his eighteenth year, fully and perfectly developed, tall and vigorous above the common even in a nation of tall and vigorous men, graceful with the grace of health and strength, and easy with the ease of one born to occupy always the place of command and power.