Nikky, however, proclaimed himself hopelessly beaten and a bad loser. So the Crown Prince put away the cards, which belonged to Miss Braithwaite, and with which she played solitaire in the evenings. Then he lounged to the window, his hands in his pockets. There was something on his mind which the Chancellor’s reference to Hedwig’s picture had recalled. Something he wished to say to Nikky, without looking at him.
So he clearer throat, and looked out the window, and said, very casually:
“Hilda says that Hedwig is going to get married.”
“So I hear, Highness.”
“She doesn’t seem to be very happy about it. She’s crying, most of the time.”
It was Nikky’s turn to clear his throat. “Marriage is a serious matter,” he said. “It is not to be gone into lightly.”
“Once, when I asked you about marriage, you said marriage was when two people loved each other, and wanted to be together the rest of their lives.”
“Well,” hedged Nikky, “that is the idea, rather.”
“I should think,” said Prince Ferdinand William Otto, slightly red, “that you would marry her yourself.”
Nikky, being beyond speech for an instant and looking, had His Royal Highness but seen him, very tragic and somewhat rigid, the Crown Prince went on: