“Mother, here’s company to supper! Oh, look at the cake! B-O-B-Y’! Mother! That’s awful!”
Mrs. Thorpe looked at the cake. “Poor Pepy,” she said. “Suppose she had made it ‘Booby’?” Then she saw Ferdinand William Otto, and went over, somewhat puzzled, with her hand out. “I am very glad Bobby brought you,” she said. “He has so few little friends—”
Then she stopped, for the Prince had brought his heels together sharply, and, bending over her hand, had kissed it, exactly as he kissed his Aunt Annunciata’s when he went to have tea with her. Mrs. Thorpe was fairly startled, not at the kiss, but at the grace with which the tribute was rendered.
Then she looked down, and it restored her composure to find that Ferdinand William Otto, too, had turned eyes toward the cake. He was, after all, only a hungry small boy. With quick tenderness she stooped and kissed him gravely on the forehead. Caresses were strange to Ferdinand William Otto. His warm little heart leaped and pounded. At that moment, he would have died for her!
Mr. Thorpe came home a little late. He kissed Bobby twelve times, and one to grow on. He shook hands absently with the visitor, and gave the Fraulein the evening paper—an extravagance on which he insisted, although one could read the news for nothing by going to the cafe on the corner. Then he drew his wife aside.
“Look here!” he said. “Don’t tell Bobby—no use exciting him, and of course it’s not our funeral anyhow but there’s a report that the Crown Prince has been kidnapped. And that’s not all. The old King is dying!”
“How terrible!”
“Worse than that. The old King gone and no Crown Prince! It may mean almost any sort of trouble! I’ve closed up at the Park for the night.” His arm around his wife, he looked through the doorway to where Bobby and Ferdinand were counting the candles. “It’s made me think pretty hard,” he said. “Bobby mustn’t go around alone the way he’s been doing. All Americans here are considered millionaires. If the Crown Prince could go, think how easy—”
His arm tightened around his wife, and together they went in to the birthday feast. Ferdinand William Otto was hungry. He ate eagerly—chicken, fruit compote, potato salad—again shades of the Court physicians, who fed him at night a balanced ration of milk, egg, and zwieback! Bobby also ate busily, and conversation languished.
Then the moment came when, the first cravings appeased, they sat back in their chairs while Pepy cleared the table and brought in a knife to cut the cake. Mr. Thorpe had excused himself for a moment. Now he came back, with a bottle wrapped in a newspaper, and sat down again.