And so it came about that, in this leafy, sunny land of cream and honey, one very lovely morning, young Kingsbury, booted and spurred and still flushed from his early gallop through the soft wood-roads of the forest, found Smith at breakfast under the grape-arbour, immersed in a popular novel and a bowl of strawberries.
"Hello," said Smith, politely, pushing the fruit across the table. "The berries are fine; I took a corking trout an hour ago; we'll have it directly."
"I saw the Countess," said Kingsbury, carelessly unbuttoning his gloves as he stood there.
"Oh, you did? Well, which one is the Countess, the girl with the dark hair, or that stunning red-haired beauty?"
"How could I tell? I couldn't ride up and ask, could I? They were driving, as usual. The King was out, too; I wish he'd wear a decent hat."
"With the moral welfare of two hemispheres on your hands, you ought not to feel responsible for the King's derby," observed Smith.
Any exaggeration of fact always perplexed Kingsbury. He flattened out his gloves, stuck his riding-crop into his left boot, and looked at Smith through his monocle.
"For all the talk about the King," he said, "the peasantry salute him as reverently as though he were their father."
To which Smith, in his flippancy, replied:
"The children for their monarch pray,
Each buxom lass and laddie;
A thousand reasons good have they
To call the King their daddy."