"In what language——" began Monsignor Masterman nervously.
"Oh! English, no doubt. You can't talk French?"
Monsignor shook his head.
"Not a hundred words," he said.
Again came the quick footstep, and the French priest appeared, still gay, but with a certain solemnity. "Come this way, gentlemen," he said. "The King will see you." (He glanced at the prelate.) "You won't forget to kneel, Monsignor."
To the English prelate the scene that he saw, on emerging at last into the open space in the middle, protected by the ancient yews—even though he should have been prepared for it by all that he had already seen—simply once more dazed and stupefied him.
The centre of the space was occupied by a round pond, perhaps thirty yards across, of absolutely still water, and in this mirror, shaded by the masses of foliage overhead, was reflected a picture that might have been taken straight from some painting two hundred years old. For, on the semicircle of marble seats that stood beyond the water, sat a company of figures dressed once more in all the bravery of real colour and splendour, as from days when men were not ashamed to use publicly and commonly these glittering gifts of God.
Monsignor hardly noticed the rest (there were perhaps twelve or fifteen all told, with half a dozen women amongst them); he looked only, as he came round the pond, at the central figure that advanced to meet him. Twice he had seen him yesterday—yet those occasions had been public. But to see the King now, at ease amongst his friends, yet still royally dressed in his brilliant blue suit and feathered hat, with his tall cane—to see the whole company, gay and brilliant, talking and laughing, taking their pleasure in the air before breakfast—the whole thing somehow brought home to him the reality of what appeared to him as a change, more than had all the pomps and glories of the day before. Splendour no longer seemed ceremonial, but natural.
Monsignor Allet was explaining something in rapid French in the King's ear, and as the two came up, the face that listened smiled suddenly with intelligence.
"I give you welcome," he said in excellent English. "Come, gentlemen" (he turned to the others, who had risen to their feet as he rose), "we must be getting homewards. Monsignor!" (and he beckoned to the two English priests to walk with him.)