"Then, if your husband's name was Dowsett, I presume that your name is Dowsett, too. So that you are Mrs Dowsett after all."
"My dear Admiral! Once a Princess always a Princess. I do not cease to be the Princess Margaretta because, by accident, I chance to have had a husband who was a commoner."
She said this in a way which showed that I had wounded her sensibilities.
Then I tried to bring the subject round to young Charles Marchmont. I got there by degrees. She caught up the hints I dropped with a quickness which confounded me.
"Poor Mr Marchmont! He is so utterly in love with me!"
"In love with you--Charles Marchmont!"
I stared. I almost let out that the young scoundrel was, nominally, engaged to Daisy--my little girl. But I did not choose to give my child away even to the Princess Margaretta.
"He has given me a hundred pounds."
I almost sprang from the carriage seat.
"Charles Marchmont has given you a hundred pounds!"